November 19, 2007 — Manufacturers of the miniature motion detectors at the heart of successful consumer electronic products such as Nintendo’s Wii, Apple’s iPhone and Activision’s “Guitar Hero” game have achieved huge market success by revolutionizing the silicon-based MEMS accelerometers behind the new user interfaces, said Douglas McEuen of ABI Research.

The “early adopters” of this new user interface include Analog Devices (Wii), STMicroelectronics (iPhone) and Freescale Semiconductor.

“The MEMS accelerometer market will see strong, solid growth in the next five years, driven mainly by the technology’s great potential for user interface transformation across multiple industries,” McEuen said. “We expect the market to show a compound annual growth rate of 27 percent to 2012.”

Being first in these market segments yields the greatest rewards, he said, but followers can expect substantial returns, too. Even a small part of a global market such as wireless handsets will produce very satisfactory revenue — not to mention the largely unexploited health and exercise market.

Some applications of MEMS accelerometers will have to wait for unit prices to fall, however. According to a new ABI Research study, true mass market traction will only begin when individual unit prices fall below $1.

“MEMS accelerometers are a silicon technology,” said McEuen, “so prices fall as mass volumes are reached.” McEuen predicts that they $1 barrier will be broken in 2010.

“You’ll be able to do a lot of new things to a lot of old technologies, and finding out which and how will be a key to success,” he said. “The possibilities are endless, and the goal is to be first in.”