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Microelectromechanical system (MEMS) pressure sensors will achieve accelerated growth this year and become the leading type of MEMS device, driven by increasing use in automotive and the fast-growing handset space, according to insights from the IHS iSuppli MEMS & Sensors Service from information and analytics provider IHS.

Revenue for MEMS pressure sensors this year will reach a projected $1.71 billion, up 14 percent from $1.50 billion in 2012. This year’s growth improves on the already solid 11 percent increase of 2012, but even rosier prospects are in store next year when expansion peaks at 16 percent. Steady, uninterrupted growth will continue until at least 2017, by which time the market will be worth $2.49 billion, as shown in the figure below.

MEMS pressure sensors

Used for control and monitoring purposes in myriad applications, pressure sensors are set this year to become the biggest-selling MEMS device, displacing the incumbent leaders: accelerometers and gyroscopes.

“Pressure sensors play a key role in automotive safety,” said Richard Dixon, Ph.D., principal analyst for MEMS & sensors at IHS. “Because of this, the biggest market remains the automotive segment, where the sensors predominate in tire-pressure monitoring and braking systems. However, wireless applications—led by mobile handsets—will see the most explosive growth this year, up by 90 percent. Other important markets for pressure sensors are in medical electronics, industry, white goods and military/aerospace.”

Automotive rules the road

In automotive, MEMS pressure sensor revenue in 2013 is expected to amount to $1.26 billion, or fully 74 percent of total industry revenue for the year. At least 18 automotive applications will fuel the space, including tire pressure, brake sensors used in electronic stability control systems, side airbags, engine control related to increasingly stringent emissions regulations worldwide, barometric pressure and exhaust gas recirculation pressure.

A rapidly growing new application is in gasoline direct-injection systems using high-pressure sensors up to 200 bar. Gasoline engines, especially in Europe where diesels make up a large proportion of vehicle sales, are enjoying a renaissance in light of upcoming emissions legislation in the EU, due in 2015. Diesel engines already employ many pressure sensors in the engine and in after-treatment systems.

Though automotive will lose some steam in the years to come, the segment will continue to command the largest revenue compared to other markets, with up to two-thirds of total industry takings even by 2017.

Wireless grabs spotlight; other areas also prosper

A strong new contributor this year is the wireless segment, particularly handsets. Pressure sensors will support indoor navigation, measuring altitude and providing a fast lock on global positioning systems that identify with precision on which floor of a building a user is located. Samsung first started using pressure sensors in its Galaxy S III smartphone in 2012, and Apple will be following suit soon, IHS believes.

Subsequent growth here will be very fast as other manufacturers jump on the bandwagon to offer the same functionality in their phones, making wireless the second-largest market after automotive already by 2014. This growth will continue and in 2017, every other smart phone should feature a pressure sensor.

Military/aerospace is a big mover; other markets also expand

For the remaining four markets, revenue growth this year for MEMS pressure sensors will range from 4 to 11 percent.

In medical electronics, pressure sensors will find their most extensive use in the form of blood pressure devices utilized during medical operations. The medical electronics market this year will be the second-biggest after automotive, with revenue of $143.9 million.

MEMS pressure sensors will also find prominent use in industrial electronics, a market worth $112.6 million in 2013; and in consumer electronics, valued at $45.2 million in 2013.

The industrial segment is highly fragmented with many applications, such as in boilers, pumps, and food or semiconductor processing. In comparison, consumer electronics is a small market at present for the sensors, consisting mainly of dive and sport watches, pedometers and hiking altimeters, as well as appliances like washing machines.

Dedicated personal heath-monitoring devices and activity monitors with a watch form factor, for instance, will potentially drive an additional wave of positive movement for pressure sensors, IHS expects.

Other examples that will do the same are motion-tracking devices that measure height for accuracy in stair counting.

Another notable segment is military/aerospace, driven by the commercial aircraft boom at U.S. maker Boeing and at pan-European entity Airbus. Although the total number of aircraft, jets, turboprops and helicopters sold worldwide is less than 10,000 per year, the number of pressure sensors being used here can be significant. A large jet, for instance, needs as many as 130 pressure sensors for an array of applications.

Prices are also high, running from the hundred-dollar to the thousand-dollar range, due to exacting performance requirements. Although the military/aerospace market is currently the smallest this year for MEMS pressure sensors at $39.8 million, growth will be solid at 11 percent.

The fast growing market for sensors for smart phones is re-shuffling the ranks of MEMS suppliers. For the first time, suppliers of inertial sensors have surpassed the major makers of micro mirrors and inkjet heads that have long dominated the industry on Yole Développement’s annual ranking of the Top 30 MEMS companies.

 top 30 MEMS suppliers

STMicroelectronics increased MEMS sales by ~10 percent in 2012, to become the first company with $1 billion in MEMS revenue, moving past Texas Instruments to become the sector’s largest company. Robert Bosch saw 14 percent growth, to ~$842 million in MEMS sales, pushing ahead of both Texas Instruments and Hewlett Packard for the first time to become the second ranking player, according to Yole’s figures. Both ST and Bosch have been aggressively expanding their consumer product lines to offer customers a broad range of sensors, and increasingly also combinations of sensors in a single package for easier integration at lower cost. Their growing volumes also help keep their fabs running more efficiently, for the assured manufacturing capability that volume users demand.  ST, Bosch and other major inertial sensor suppliers saw strong revenue growth despite the 20 percent-30 percent drop in average selling prices for accelerometers and gyroscopes over the year–because of even bigger ramps in unit volume.

“ST increased unit production by 58 percent, to 1.3 billion MEMS devices in 2012, up to some 4 million units a day—not counting its foundry business,” notes Yole Market & Technology Analyst, Laurent Robin. “It’s hard for many companies to match that.”

Yole calculates the MEMS industry overall saw another ~10 percent growth in 2012 to become an ~$11 billion business– in a year when the semiconductor industry saw a ~2 percent decline. The Top 30 companies account for nearly 75 percent of that total MEMS market.

The traditional gap between the big four MEMS makers and the rest of the pack narrowed this year, as strong demand for more MEMS sensors in both consumer and automotive markets drove strong growth across a range of suppliers. Knowles Electronics saw better than 20 percent growth to climb into fourth place with some $440 million in revenues from MEMS microphones, closing in on HP. Panasonic and Denso were close behind with more than $350 million in MEMS sales in their largely automotive markets.

Mobile phones and tablets were the real sweet spot for big growth opportunities, though. Chinese electret microphone supplier AAC made the top companies ranking for the first time as its MEMS microphone sales jumped ~90 percent to ~$65 million, as it became the second source for the iPhone. InvenSense saw some 30 percent growth as it ramped up production of its inertial sensors. Triquint saw a 27% increase in revenues from its BAW filters.

Murata moved sharply up the ranking as its acquisition of VTI created ~$179 million in combined MEMS revenue.

Meanwhile, the traditional major MEMS markets for micromirrors and inkjet heads have matured and slowed, with demand for inkjet heads particularly hit by the consumer printer market’s rapid turn away from replaceable heads to page-wide and fixed-head technologies. That hit revenues at both the inkjet companies and their manufacturing partners.

Yole defines MEMS as three dimensional structures made by semiconductor-like processes, with primarily mechanical, not electronic, function. We also include magnetometers, as they are now so closely integrated with MEMS inertial sensors, and all microfluidics, including those on polymer. Yole figured MEMS units and value at the first level of packaged device. For companies that do not release MEMS revenues, Yole estimate the figures based on data for product market size, market share, product teardowns, reverse costing, and discussions with the companies.

Increasing HD video content, social networking, shared data via the cloud, low power consumption, and “instant on” features continue to drive growth of consumer, communication, and computing devices that use NAND flash memory. While applications are many, IC Insights forecasts smartphones, tablet computers, and solid-state drives (SSDs) to be among the biggest users of NAND flash memory in 2013 (see figure).

NAND flash memory

Smartphones are forecast to account for 26 percent of the $30.0 billion NAND flash memory market in 2013.  (The NAND flash market is forecast to grow 12 percent in 2013 from $26.8 billion in 2012).  According to data from IC Insights’ 2013 IC Market Drivers Report, approximately 56 percent of total cellphone shipments in 2013 (975 million of 1,745 total shipments) are forecast to be smartphones, up from 750 million or 42 percent in 2012 and 30 percent in 2011.  This is significant because smartphones contain as much as 9x more NAND flash than a basic or enhanced cellphone.

Another high-volume application for flash memory in 2013 is solid-state drives, which are built with high-density NAND flash chips and feature standard mass-storage interfaces that are found on hard-disk drives.  SSDs are forecast to account for 13 percent of NAND flash memory sales this year.

SSDs are built in form-factor sizes that are identical to hard-disk drives (such as 1.8- and 2.5-inch modules) so they can be easily plugged into existing PC and notebook designs.  In recent years, SSD-storage capacity has quadrupled annually, and now it appears that solid-state drives are becoming serious challengers to conventional hard-disk storage in portable computers.  Recently, SSD-storage solutions have gained favor in large server computers, which stand to benefit from the faster read/write speeds of flash-memory-built drives as well as reduced power consumption.  Notebook PCs, installed car navigation systems, industrial equipment, and digital video recorders (DVRs) are a few additional applications that are being targeted for SSDs.

Tablet PCs and HHP devices—handheld players such as music/video players and handheld game systems—are expected to be significant consumers of NAND flash in 2013 as well. Tablet PCs are the fastest growing segment of the PC market and represent one of the fastest-growing consumer devices of all time. Shipments of tablet PC devices like the iPad grew to 117 million units in 2012, almost double the 65 million shipped in 2011.  Tablet PC shipments are forecast to reach 167 million units in 2013.  Leading tablet PCs typically feature 16GB of NAND flash as a starting point.

Researchers are developing a new type of semiconductor technology for future computers and electronics based on "two-dimensional nanocrystals" layered in sheets less than a nanometer thick that could replace today’s transistors.

The layered structure is made of a material called molybdenum disulfide, which belongs to a new class of semiconductors – metal di-chalogenides – emerging as potential candidates to replace today’s technology, CMOS.

New technologies will be needed to allow the semiconductor industry to continue advances in computer performance driven by the ability to create ever-smaller transistors. It is becoming increasingly difficult, however, to continue shrinking electronic devices made of conventional silicon-based semiconductors.

"We are going to reach the fundamental limits of silicon-based CMOS technology very soon, and that means novel materials must be found in order to continue scaling," said Saptarshi Das, who has completed a doctoral degree, working with Joerg Appenzeller, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and scientific director of nanoelectronics at Purdue’s Birck Nanotechnology Center. "I don’t think silicon can be replaced by a single material, but probably different materials will co-exist in a hybrid technology."

The nanocrystals are called two-dimensional because the materials can exist in the form of extremely thin sheets with a thickness of 0.7 nanometers, or roughly the width of three or four atoms. Findings show that the material performs best when formed into sheets of about 15 layers with a total thickness of 8-12 nanometers. The researchers also have developed a model to explain these experimental observations.

Findings are appearing this month as a cover story in the journal Rapid Research Letters. The paper was co-authored by Das and Appenzeller, who also have co-authored a paper to be presented during the annual Device Research Conference at the University of Notre Dame from June 23-26.

"Our model is generic and, therefore, is believed to be applicable to any two-dimensional layered system," Das said.

Molybdenum disulfide is promising in part because it possesses a bandgap, a trait that is needed to switch on and off, which is critical for digital transistors to store information in binary code.

Analyzing the material or integrating it into a circuit requires a metal contact. However, one factor limiting the ability to measure the electrical properties of a semiconductor is the electrical resistance in the contact. The researchers eliminated this contact resistance using a metal called scandium, allowing them to determine the true electronic properties of the layered device. Their results have been published in the January issue of the journal Nano Letters with doctoral students Hong-Yan Chen and Ashish Verma Penumatcha as the other co-authors.

Transistors contain critical components called gates, which enable the devices to switch on and off and to direct the flow of electrical current. In today’s chips, the length of these gates is about 14 nanometers, or billionths of a meter.

The semiconductor industry plans to reduce the gate length to 6 nanometers by 2020. However, further size reductions and boosts in speed are likely not possible using silicon, meaning new designs and materials will be needed to continue progress. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Glass is everywhere: from MEMS, CMOS image sensors and power to memory, logic IC and microfluidics

Glass is widely used in everyday life and found in large quantities in many industries, such as flat panel display applications. Over the last few years, glass has gained considerable interest from the semiconductor industry due to its very attractive electrical, physical and chemical properties, as well as its prospects for a relevant and cost-efficient solution. The application scope of glass substrates in the semiconductor field is broad and highly diversified.

The demand for glass is growing, and glass has already been adapted for various and unique wafer-processing functionalities and platforms supporting a wide range of end-applications. For example, WLCapping is driven mainly by MEMS and CMOS image sensors. In the coming years, the availability of other glass functionalities such as 3D TGV/2.5 D interposer in conjunction with end-applications like memory and logic IC will be the driving force for growth, creating new challenges and new technical developments along the way.

Mainly driven by the wafer-level packaging industry, the glass wafer market is expected to grow from $158 million in 2012 to $1.3B by 2018, at a CAGR of ~41 percent over the next five years

“Initially driven by CMOS image sensor and MEMS applications, this growing industry will be supported by relevant end-applications such as LED, memory and logic IC, where glass is on its way to being commercialized. In terms of wafers shipped, a 4x glass wafer growth is expected in the semiconductor industry over the next five years, achieving more than 15 million 8 inch equivalent wafer starts per year by 2018,” explains Amandine Pizzagalli, market and technology analyst, Equipment & Materials Manufacturing, at Yole Développement.

Glass substrate: a key enabler of various functionalities in the semiconductor field

The glass WLCapping platform is a mature functionality already adopted with significant volume in CMOS Image Sensors, where more than 3.3 million glass caps were shipped in 2012. This market is expected to grow slowly, with a CAGR of 14 percent from 2012-2018, mainly supported by MEMS devices impacted by the request for further miniaturization. On the flip side, the glass market for WLOptics will likely decline from 2015-2018 due to the development of competing technologies.

All of this said, we expect to see strong growth in the glass market, mainly supported by two emerging WLP platforms: with a CAGR of 110 percent and 70 percent respectively, the glass-type 2.5D interposer emerging platform and the carrier wafer will be glass’s fastest-growing fields over the next five years, since glass offers the best value proposition in terms of cost, flexibility, mechanical rigidity and surface flatness.

If glass is qualified for 2.5D interposer functionality, the glass market could exceed $1B revenue by 2018. However, it’s still unclear how BEOL wafer fabs will choose glass over the current silicon technology used for logic IC applications (for the 2.5D/3D SOC and system partitioning areas), but the glass variety of 2.5D interposer substrates is expected to significantly impact future glass wafer demand, and it’s obvious that the 2.5D glass interposer will attract many newcomers.

The use of glass interposers in packaging will certainly be on the HVM roadmap within a few years.

glass wafer market

Glass substrate: The top five players hold almost 80 percent of the market

In the semiconductor industry, the glass substrate market is split amongst five main suppliers. Schott (G), Tecnisco (JP), PlanOptik (G), Bullen (US) and Corning (US) will share more than 70 percent $158M glass substrate market this year, driven mainly by demand for WLCapping.

In the midst of this growing market, semiconductor glass suppliers are trying to differentiate themselves by proposing a variety of glass substrate material properties with a good CTE, solid thermal properties and no polishing/grinding steps required, which would result in reduced costs.

Many glass substrate suppliers such as AGC, Corning and HOYA are expected to increase their business in the next few years since they are quite aggressive in 2.5D interposers and glass carrier wafers, and are expected to ramp-up into high volume production. Since the big players are already deeply entrenched in the glass market, it will be very challenging for a new entrant to break through in the foreseeable future.

Global flat-panel television shipments fell by 10 percent in February and by an estimated 4 percent in March compared to the same months in 2012 as Chinese demand plunged following the Lunar New Year buying season.

Global shipments of flat-panel display (FPD) televisions amounted to 12.6 million units in February, down from 14 million one year earlier, according to the Monthly Worldwide FPD TV Shipment Data Report from the IHS TV Systems Intelligence Service at information and analytics provider IHS. Shipments fell by another 4 percent in March, according to a preliminary estimate, as shown in the figure below.

flat panel TV shipments plunge

The FPD market consists of liquid crystal display (LCD) and plasma televisions.

“Worldwide television shipments usually decline in February compared to January because of the shortness of the month and the conclusion of the Chinese Lunar New Year shopping season,” said Jusy Hong, senior analyst, television research, for IHS. “However, global shipments in February this year also dropped sharply on a year-over-year basis because of the weak results in China. This drastic change illustrates the rising influence of the Chinese market on the worldwide television business. Chinese companies this year are expected to account for more than 20 percent of global LCD-TV production.”

Rising ratings for Chinese TV makers

Chinese-based companies in January shipped 31 percent of worldwide LCD TVs, marking the first time that the country surpassed South Korea to take the global lead. However, China slid back to second place in February, with its share dropping to 18 percent.

Read more: Global LCD TV shipments fall for the first time

LCD TV shipments by Chinese-based TV brands declined drastically in February after the end of one of the country’s biggest sales seasons ever. And despite strong sales for the Lunar New Year, inventory issues in the country remain a problem. This contributed to declining LCD panel procurement among Chinese TV makers in January and February.

Big TVs achieve bigger shipments

Global shipments of large-sized televisions are increasing very quickly, especially for the 50-inch and larger sets, based on analysts of shipments from the world’s top 14 brands.

Comparing February 2013 to the same month in 2012, worldwide shipments of 50-inch-and-larger-sized TVs increased to 10 percent, double the 5 percent last year.

In particular, the 50- through 55-inch segment also rose to 3 percent, up from zero during the same period. Moreover, 60-inch and larger size TV shipments are increasing rapidly. Shipments for this segment totaled 240,000 units so far this year, up 100,000 units from 150,000 units in 2012. These sets accounted for 3 percent of the total LCD TV shipments in February.

Read more: OLEDS and the beginning of the end for LCDs

“TV brands are aggressively expanding their lineups and shipments of super-large-sized TVs in order to improve the profitability of their TV businesses,” Hong said. “Panel manufacturers also are following suit, resulting in decreasing prices for both panels and TV sets.”

Midsize sets see mixed results

Meanwhile, medium -sized TVs in the 15- though 29-inch range lost share worldwide, with their portion of the market declining to 10 percent in February, down from 15 percent during the same month the previous year. The share of 32-inch sets, which account for the biggest portion of the global market, also dropped to 40 percent, down from 42 percent during the same period in 2012.

Meanwhile, new sizes such as the 39-inch and 50-inch made a successful entry into the worldwide TV market. The 35- through 39-inch segment, which includes the popular 39-inch size, doubled its portion of the market to 6 percent.

U.S. television shipments are forecast to decline for a second year in a row in 2013, but growth will resume next year as the liquid crystal display television (LCD TV) segment regains some of the strength it had lost in the past year.

Shipments in 2013 of televisions into the U.S. market will amount to a projected 36.6 million units, compared to 37.6 million last year, according to an IHS iSuppli U.S. Television Market Tracker Report from information and analytics provider IHS. The anticipated 2.7 percent contraction will be smaller than the 5.8 percent slide suffered by the industry in 2012 when domestic TV shipments retreated from 39.9 million units in 2011. However, it will mean that shipments will have declined for two straight years by the time 2013 is over.

Despite the current negative picture, the industry is poised to see expansion return next year as shipments tick up to 37.8 million units, marking the beginning of at least a four-year run of steady growth, as shown in the below figure.

US TV market

“U.S. television demand is being hit by the double whammy of the plunge in both the plasma and LCD TV segments,” said Veronica Thayer, analyst for consumer electronics & technology at IHS. “After peaking in 2010, plasma sales now are on a terminal decline. Meanwhile, the mature U.S. LCD TV market contracted in 2012 as most consumers already own one or more sets.”

Plasma TV shipments last year shrank a steep 24 percent to 3.6 million units compared to their 2011 level, and LCD TV shipments descended 3 percent to 33.8 million units.

But while plasma shipments will continue to be down this year as part of an irreversible trend toward extinction, LCD TV shipments will be up 3 percent, reversing the losses of last year and coming close to the segment’s 2011 shipment level. LCD TV shipments will grow another 6 percent next year, pulling the overall U.S. TV space out of its slump.

Meanwhile, the introduction of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) televisions will start to work its magic on the industry, especially because the advanced sets will sport perfect black colors and much thinner profiles than already slim-based LED-backlit sets. South Korea’s LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics will lob the first volleys in the first half of 2013 by each launching 55-inch models—first previewed in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and vastly different from the tiny 11- and 15-inch OLED TVs shown several years ago.

A total of just 56,000 OLED TVs will ship cumulatively in 2013 and 2014, with sets commanding extremely high retail pricing because of a lack of large-scale manufacturing. But shipment numbers will grow quickly from 2014 onward, jumping to 370,000 by 2015, and then surging to 1.9 million units by 2017. Revenue from OLED TVs could reach as much as 21 percent of the total TV market revenue for that year.

Owing to the high retail price of OLED TVs, this display type will account for a larger percentage of revenue compared to shipments in the total U.S. TV market.

It’s no secret that Samsung is up against Apple in many ways, in products, sales and innovation. However, even in the face of Apple’s patent infringement lawsuits, Samsung is still climbing the charts. The electronics giant sold approximately $53 billion in revenue in the last quarter of 2012, in comparison to Apple’s $36 billion in revenue, though the profit margins both companies are seeing were relatively similar. And while Bloomberg is predicting Apple will post its lowest sales increase since 2009, Samsung is reportedly poised for big growth in a number of sectors.  

Samsung grabs No. 3 foundry spot

Samsung jumped into the foundry scene in mid-2010, and quickly became one of the anticipated long-term leaders in the sector. It’s now easily the biggest IDM foundry operation, with sales nearly 10 times that of IBM, IC Insights noted in January. IC Insights’ August update projected Samsung finishing in fourth place just behind UMC, separated by about $400 million, but anticipated Samsung surpassing the Taiwan rival in 2013.

Samsung followed a sparkling 82 percent growth in 2011 by nearly doubling sales again to $4.33 billion, putting it just shy of GLOBALFOUNDRIES which grew sales a solid 31 percent last year to $4.56B. In fact IC Insights believes Samsung will challenge GLOBALFOUNDRIES for the No.2 spot before 2013 is done, leveraging its leading-edge capacity and huge capital spending budget. With dedicated IC foundry capacity reaching 150,000 300mm wafers/month by 4Q12, and an average revenue/wafer of $3000, Samsung’s IC foundry capacity could pull down $5.4B in annual sales, the analyst firm calculates.

How did Samsung get so big so fast in the foundry business? It supplied chips to nearly half of the industry’s 750 million smartphones shipped in 2012 — application processors for the 220 million of its own handsets in 2012, plus the 133 million iPhones Apple shipped.

Thanks to the Galaxy S4, Samsung has 99% of the AMOLED market

Samsung has invested a considerable amount into the AMOLED market, which is now poised for steady growth, thanks to a growing demand for high-end smartphones and tablets. According to Forbes contributor Haydn Shaughnessy, Samsung now holds 99% of the AMOLED market.

AMOLED display shipments for mobile handset applications are expected to grow to 447.7 million units in 2017, up from 195.1 million units in 2013, according to insights from the IHS iSuppli Emerging Displays Service at information and analytics provider IHS. Within the mobile handset display market, the market share for AMOLED displays is forecast to grow from 7.9% in 2013 to 15.2 percent in 2017, as presented in the figure below. AMOLED’s market share for 4-inch or larger handset displays employed in smartphones is set to increase to 24.4% in 2017, up from 23.0% in 2013.

“Because of their use in marquee products like the Galaxy S4, high-quality AMOLEDs are growing in popularity and gaining share at the expense of liquid crystal display (LCD) screens,” said Vinita Jakhanwal, director for mobile & emerging displays and technology at IHS. “These attractive AMOLEDs are part of a growing trend of large-sized, high-resolution displays used in mobile devices. With the S4 representing the first time that a full high-definition (HD) AMOLED has been used in mobile handsets, Samsung continues to raise the profile of this display technology.”

Samsung anticipates MEMS pressure sensor market boom

Samsung has been ahead of its time in its adoption of MEMS pressure sensors, anticipating the state of the market and getting a jump on the competition.

Global shipments of MEMS pressure sensors in cellphones are set to rise to 681 million units in 2016, up more than eightfold from 82 million in 2012, according to the IHS iSuppli MEMS & Sensors Service at information and analytics provider IHS. Shipments this year are expected to double to 162 million units, as presented in the attached figure, primarily due to Samsung’s usage of pressure sensors in the Galaxy S4 and other smartphone models.

“Samsung is the only major original equipment manufacturer (OEM) now using pressure sensors in all its flagship smartphone models,” said Jérémie Bouchaud, director and senior principal analyst for MEMS and sensors at IHS. “The pressure device represents just one component among a wealth of different sensors used in the S4.”

Besides Samsung, few other OEMs have been using pressure sensors in smartphones. The only other smartphone OEMs to use pressure sensors in their products are Sony Mobile in a couple of models in 2012, and a few Chinese vendors, like Xiaomi.

Apple, which pioneered the use of MEMS sensors in smartphones, does not employ pressure sensors at the moment in the iPhone. However, IHS expects Apple will start them in 2014, which will contribute to another doubling of the market in 2014 to 325 million units.

But what about the patent infringement suit?

Six months after Samsung was ordered to pay an unprecedented $1.05 billion to Apple in the notorious patent infringement suit, Judge Lucy Koh, the federal judge presiding over two Apple v. Samsung cases in California, entered an order striking $450 million from the damages award determined by a jury in August 2012. This corresponds to 14 of the 28 Samsung products in question in the initial lawsuit. Koh disagreed with the notice date provided by Apple concerning its patents-in-suit, and, as a result, a new damages trial must be held, most likely after the appellate proceedings, which were sought by both parties.

The new trial could mean good news or bad news for Samsung. There is the possibility that the court could rule in favor of a reduction of damages to be paid. However, it is also just as likely that the court could rule Samsung owe Apple even more than the original $1.05 billion ordered in August.

Some analysts have speculated that, if the suit holds, consumers could see a jump in prices of Samsung, Google and Android devices. Only time will tell if will a price that the masses will be willing to pay. If it is, don’t expect to see Samsung slowing down any time soon.

The high-value microelectromechanical system (MEMS) market experienced soft growth last year, mainly due to weakness in the mainstay medical electronics and industrial sectors, according to an IHS iSuppli MEMS High-Value MEMS Market Tracker Report from information and analytics provider IHS.

Revenue in 2012 for high-value MEMS, a market characterized by the lofty average selling prices compared to other MEMS devices, amounted to $1.63 billion, equivalent to growth of 6.5 percent from $1.53 billion in 2011. While revenue was up, growth was noticeably down from the 12.5 percent expansion of 2011.

This year will see a slightly improved 7.4 percent increase to $1.8 billion as the industry starts to recover during the second half. Growth then picks up by 2014 and rises to 10.3 percent, with 2015 and 2016 also forecast to experience solid upturns north of 9.0 percent, as shown in the figure below.

MEMS revenue slows

“The high-value MEMS market last year suffered a deceleration in growth because of continuing slow sales in medical electronics as well as a broad-based downturn in the industrial segment,” said Richard Dixon, Ph.D., principal analyst for MEMS & Sensors at IHS. “In medical electronics, the market performance has been sluggish for the last 18 months, echoing global economic uncertainties. The same macroeconomic headwinds also curtailed end-user demand in industrial electronics semiconductors, inflicting further pain. The high-value MEMS market was aided slightly by strong performance in the telecom, aerospace, and oil and gas sectors, which served to ameliorate the negative effects of the slow-moving sectors.”

Higher growth expected for high-value MEMS

Despite the diminished growth of 2012, the high-value MEMS market remains the second-fastest-expanding area in the broader MEMS space, coming in after the mobile and consumer market but leading the data processing and automotive segments. High-value MEMS accounted for 19 percent of the total MEMS industry last year, despite extreme fragmentation of the space with well over 100 suppliers. The average selling prices of sensors used in high-value MEMS are also much higher than the prices of sensors used in other MEMS segments, which gives the high-value MEMS industry its strength and importance.

Results sluggish in most high-value MEMS segments

Six sectors make up approximately 95 percent of the high-value MEMS market. The largest is medical electronics, accounting for more than 80 percent of total high-value MEMS shipments last year.

The majority of medical electronics sensors are used for diagnostics, patient monitoring and therapy.

For instance, tens of millions of pressure sensors are used and thrown away annually, with the sensors deployed to monitor the blood pressure of patients during and after major operations. Pressure and flow sensors are also used in devices like ventilators and respirators; implantable devices such as cardiac monitors; thermometers; and infusion pumps for introducing fluids, medication or nutrients into a patient’s circulatory system.

The depressed performance in medical electronics was also present in other high-value MEMS segments.

The test and measurement space, especially in semiconductor testing and wafer processing, was flat to down last year. Likewise, the industrial segment governing power tools and transportation exhibited anemic results.

Weak growth expected

Two high-value MEMS segments registered growth but were weak at best: building and home control on the one hand, with smart meters declining last year; and manufacturing and process automation on the other, because of low growth in areas like industrial motors.

In the energy generation and distribution segment, results were mixed. Spending on utilities was down and wind turbine deployments were slowing, but oil and gas showed strong demand in the third quarter based on shale discoveries.

The one segment of the high-value MEMS industry that was up strongly last year was military and civil aerospace. Despite a decelerating missiles and munitions market, the segment more than made up with the extremely robust commercial aircraft sales of the Airbus from Pan-European maker EADS, as well as of the Dreamliner planes made by U.S maker Boeing.

Six devices made up 83 percent of the high-value MEMS market last year. The biggest was microbolometers—tiny arrays of heat-detecting sensors sensitive to infrared radiation—used in firefighting, law enforcement and surveillance systems.

Other prominent high-value MEMS devices include pressure sensors, optical MEMS in telecommunications, wafer probes for semiconductor testing, inkjet printer heads, and accelerometers for gadgets like pacemakers.

Despite facing five consecutive quarters of decline and a slowdown in consumption in smartphones and tablets, the global market for NAND flash memory pulled off a surprise growth spurt during the last three months of 2012, causing sales to reach a record high.

NAND industry revenue in the October to December period of 2012 amounted to $5.6 billion, up an impressive 17% from $4.8 billion in the third quarter, according to an IHS iSuppli Flash Dynamics Market Brief from information and analytics provider IHS. Samsung Electronics, with more than a third of total revenue, led the field. NAND flash revenue for the entire year of 2012 amounted to $20.2 billion.

NAND flash growth

 

“The NAND flash market’s expansion in the fourth quarter was significant in two ways,” said Ryan Chien, analyst for memory and storage at IHS. “Not only did the increase defy the recent trend of sales sliding during the last quarter of a year, the expansion also resulted in the period having the largest revenue results in industry history. Major contributors to NAND strength in the fourth quarter included smartphones and tablets, even though density growth is projected to slow in 2013 for each smartphone, and has been negative for tablets since 2010. For these markets, rising volumes trumped the trend of slower growth in memory usage in the fourth quarter.”

Also playing a notable role in driving NAND growth during the period were solid state drives, along with retail flash products like flash drives and flash cards that likewise continue to attract significant consumer attention.

Flash bang

The 17% sequential growth in the fourth quarter last year was in stark contrast to the average 6% drop in revenue that had occurred during fourth-quarter periods for the previous five years. This time, growth was the result of solid product demand relative to preceding periods of weakness, coupled with a return to health for flash manufacturers. An important factor also was strength in component pricing, which fueled similar vigor in product pricing, stock pricing and—ultimately—revenue.

Overall, the revitalized state of the industry is attracting many new entrants, even though their presence is small in what is especially a scale-intensive space.

Samsung and Toshiba remain biggest players

The market share picture in the fourth quarter was similar to what it was a year earlier, with Samsung Electronics and Toshiba as the top two suppliers of NAND flash memory for the industry.

Samsung had fourth-quarter NAND revenue of approximately $2.0 billion, ending the year with a total of $7.5 billion or 37 percent market share. Samsung’s quarterly revenue since 2009 has hovered between $1.7 and $2.1 billion, helped by integration with its booming mobile device business, particularly smartphones.