MEMS Market Rebounds in 2010 Following Two-Year Decline

Double-digit growth driven by consumer electronics industry and cell phones.

The global Microelectromechanical (MEMS) market in 2010 will roar back from the decline of the last two years, fueled by demand for sensors and actuators from the consumer electronics industry and cell phone business, according to the market research firm iSuppli Corp.

With projected growth of 11.1 percent, the MEMS market is expected to reach $6.554 billion this year— slightly exceeding the high-water mark of $6.550 billion set in 2007. This year’s anticipated increase reverses the declines of the previous two years—the first seen by the market in its young history—when revenue dipped in 2008 to $6.3 billion and then fell further to $5.9 billion in 2009.

MEMS Market Forecast

While this year’s growth of the MEMS market may seem to pale next to the 30.8 percent rise projected in 2010 for the overall chip industry, the MEMS industry does not follow semiconductor cycles. In fact, MEMS will expand faster than the chip business as a whole from 2009 to 2014, achieving a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 10.7 percent, compared to a 9.6 percent CAGR for the semiconductor industry.

The real engine of the MEMS market will be consumer electronics and mobile handset applications. These two sectors alone will exceed $3.2 billion in 2014—close to one-third of the total MEMS market by that time. In particular, accelerometers and gyroscopes, used in cell phones and gaming controllers, will dominate in the consumer and mobile MEMS space.

Another fast-growing area of the MEMS market will be the industrial sector, comprising process control and automation, instrumentation and energy. Here, pressure and flow sensors as well as accelerometers will be important. With a CAGR of 18.1 percent, the industrial market will place second in growth, just behind the 25.4 percent CAGR for mobile handsets. And with their higher Average Selling Prices than either consumer electronics or mobile applications, the industrial market will more than double in size by 2014 to $1.2 billion, up from just $516 million in 2009.

By 2014, five MEMS devices will either exceed or approach the $1 billion mark. The list includes, in descending order: inkjets, accelerometers, pressure sensors, optical MEMS for displays and gyroscopes, iSuppli data show.

Significant revenue will also come from new MEMS devices, including switches and varactors, as well as autofocus and zoom actuators.