MEMS/MST Market to Cross $26 Billion by 2007
02/01/2003
norwalk, conn.
According to an updated report from Business Communications Co. Inc., RGB-270 MEMS Technology: Where To?, the worldwide market for MEMS/MST currently is estimated at $11 billion. By 2007, market revenues will exceed $26.4 billion, growing at an average annual growth rate (AAGR) of 19.1 percent.
Sales comprise existing MEMS/MST products such as ink jet printer cartridges, as well as new products, including RF filters for cell phones and motor controllers. The sales volume in 2007 is expected to exceed 6.8 billion units and grow at an AAGR of 19.5 percent through the forecast period.
Beyond 2007, growth is expected to continue as new applications and products are developed and global market penetration continues. As can be seen from the diversity of applications and products and size of the market sectors, general studies of this kind for the MEMS/MST industry may cease to be relevant except for reasons of academic interest.
Transportation and consumer products are currently two of the largest market sectors, representing respectively some 31 and 36 percent of current revenues. The industrial military sector also will continue to grow at a modest pace. Penetration into the industrial sector will continue to grow, given demands on industry for better quality assurance in manufacturing and the price and performance advantages that MEMS sensors and actuators have.
The healthcare market should begin to grow at a rapid pace, in that price reductions should only affect some of the older MEMS products, such as hearing devices. Several of the newer products discussed in this report will be commercialized by 2007 and will contribute to growth. In particular, by 2005, the lab-on-a-chip products and services should finally enter the marketplace in large quantities.
Growth in the consumer market will continue at a rapid pace because of increased worldwide market penetration of products such as computer storage media, ink jet printers and video games. The telecommunications sector, despite its recent slump due to overcapacity should become, along with health care, one of the largest market sectors. MEMS sales in both fiber optics equipment and wireless systems, including next-generation cell phones, will be the major market drivers. The BCC forecast lags earlier forecasts made by others by two to three years. The lag time should allow telecommunication carriers sufficient time to decide which technologies to adopt and where in their systems they will be of most value.
The environmental market should also prosper from wireless communications, although it will remain rather small compared to the other market segments. Concerns about water and air contamination, along with the need to make long-term assessments of climate and its effect on aquifers, will fuel growth in this area.
Endevco Working with National Instruments to Lead Development of Open Standards with 'Plug and P
SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, CALIF. — Endevco has formed a collaboration initiative with National Instruments (NI) to promote widespread adoption of IEEE P1451.4.
The Plug & Play Sensors Program aims to create an open sensors standard, giving systems integrators and end users the ability to automatically configure measurement and automation systems for sensors. Systems integrators and end users will be able to simplify sensor setup, use and maintenance; automatically obtain calibration data; and eliminate manual data entry and error.
IEEE P1451.4 proposes that sensors include an embedded, low-cost memory chip containing standardized transducer electronic data sheets (TEDS). TEDS store important sensor information and parameters for self-identification and self-description, eliminating the need to manually input this data when configuring a system. NI has made a TEDS library for LabVIEW available free and downloadable from its Web site.
Through participation in the IEEE 1451.4 working group, Endevco is working with NI to establish a standard TEDS format that industry suppliers can use to develop sensors, instruments and software.
Endevco will be providing technical papers and seminars to support its work with NI. These learning strategies will encourage measurement professionals to experiment with this new technology and see how minimal the tradeoffs of this new technology can be.
Newport Opens Precision Optics Facility
IRVINE, CALIF. —Newport Corp. opened a 42,000 sq ft precision optics manufacturing facility for the company's growing Newport Precision Optics (NPO) Business.
Located at 1931 Deere Ave., Irvine, adjacent to the company's global headquarters, the new state-of-the-art facility is part of Newport's strategic investment in the precision optics business and will support the manufacture of standard and very high-precision optic products.
Over the past three years Newport has expanded its optical manufacturing capability significantly to become a global provider of precision optics to the semiconductor equipment, medical, aerospace and scientific markets.
Technologist Award Goes to...
SUNNYVALE, CALIF. — MEPTEC and Advanced Packaging Magazine announced this year's Microelectronics Packaging Technologist Award winners at a special luncheon on November 12, 2002.
Mak Shinohara, Ph.D., and Al Seiling, Ph.D., were co-recipients, as co-inventors of the epoxy molding compounds (EMC) in use today in the industry.
 Publisher John Bubello hands out MEPTEC award to Tom Borghard of Nagase, who accepts the award for Mak Shinohara, Ph.D. |
In inventing EMC, developed more than 30 years ago, Shinohara and Seiling were instrumental in introducing a technology that is still mainstream in assembly and packaging today. EMC was a significant enabler for the semiconductor industry, and has been a fundamental requirement for more reliable ICs.
Begun in 1999, the award honors a person (or persons) who has been involved with developing technologies that have positively impacted the back-end of the semiconductor industry in a way that has resulted in breakthrough, revolutionary events in the areas of packaging and assembly. The criteria for the award stipulate that the person(s) must have been involved in a development that impacts the industry in terms of:
 Al Seiling, Ph.D. of Seiling & Associates, accepts the MEPTEC award from Publisher John Bubello. |
Pervasiveness of the technology Enabling of advances in the field of packaging or assembly of semiconductors Cost reduction coupled with improved reliability and concepts that allow breakthrough, revolutionary events.
ChipPAC Extends Wire Bond Technology into Flip Chip Applications
FREMONT, CALIF. —ChipPAC Inc., a large and diverse provider of semiconductor assembly and test services, introduced three-row staggered wire bonding technology at 20 µm effective pitch, an industry first for greater than 1,200 I/O pad-limited IC applications with lower packaging costs.
The company's latest solution extends the applicability of wire bonding to a much wider range of applications, including high I/O pad limited graphics and ASIC chips, which reportedly can now stay with cost-effective wire bond BGAs as opposed to 3X higher cost flip chip packaging.
ChipPAC's proprietary technology connects three rows of 60 µm pitch wire bond pads on a die to five rows of bond-fingers
ings on the package substrate using up to seven loop-heights. In addition to lowering the cost of packaging, fine-pitch wire bond BGAs obviate the added costs of redistribution layers and wafer bumping, and shorten the cycle time from wafer probe to assembly out compared to flip chip packaging.
Advanced Plasma Merges with March Plasma
CONCORD, CALIF. —March Plasma Systems integrated with Advanced Plasma Systems (APS) under the March name.
Production, applications support and contract services for the printed circuit board (PCB) products will remain in Florida at the St. Petersburg facility.
APS specializes in the manufacture of plasma treatment systems used in the fabrication of PCB products; March Plasma Systems provides similar products specially designed for the semiconductor industry. With this change, March, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nordson, now offers a complete range of plasma treatment systems that addresses all markets.
Samsung Selects Cognex Wafer Reader
NATICK, MASS. —Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of advanced memory chips, will integrate Cognex Corp.'s In-Sight 1700 wafer reader in all of its chip manufacturing plants in Hwasung, Korea.
The Cognex In-Sight 1700 is a machine vision system that reads 2-D matrix, alphanumeric and bar codes inscribed on silicon wafers. Samsung will retrofit their chip plants with the In-Sight 1700 systems in order to identify and track wafers as they go through various stages of manufacturing and testing.
ROHM, Tessera Sign Agreement
SAN JOSE, CALIF. —Tessera Technologies, a developer of intellectual property and services for chip scale and multichip packages (CSP and MCP), formed a new technology licensing agreement with ROHM Co. Ltd., a global electronics component supplier of integrated circuits (IC), discrete semiconductor devices, passive components and displays.
The ROHM license includes a diverse set of patents covering Tessera's "Compliant Chip" technology. This technology covers a range of CSP types, including IC devices packaged in "face-down," "face-up" and "system-in-package" (SiP) formats. These package types are marketed by Tessera as µBGA for face-down orientations, µBGA-F for face-up orientations and µZ for SiP solutions. Tessera's intellectual property can be used in many forms of CSP and MCP, covering a range of materials and assembly processes.
Japanese Wafer Manufacturers Produce with EVG System
SCHÄRDING, AUSTRIA —EV Group (EVG), manufacturer of MEMS and semiconductor wafer processing equipment, shipped and installed several EVG850 automated SOI wafer bonding systems to key manufacturing companies in Japan. Among these recent orders are several 200 mm production systems and a 300 mm SOI bonding system.
Today's advanced semiconductor technologies rely on SOI wafers to manufacture leading edge, low-power products for portable electronics devices in consumer and communications applications.
SOI technology has a tremendous potential to improve the functions of electronic products. EVG850 incorporates the latest technology and is designed to operate in high-throughput production environments. It has been the qualified production tool in the SOI market for many years and integrates EVG's long-term experience in developing precision wafer bonding systems.
Flextronics Opens Technology Center
SINGAPORE —Flextronics announces the grand opening of its Technology Center in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Located on its Industrial Park in Guadalajara, Flextronics' Technology Center combines a highly skilled technical staff with state-of-the-art equipment to provide customers with complete product analysis and test characterization services. By conducting reliability testing and failure analysis early in the development process, Flextronics eliminates product defects and maximizes production yields. Additionally, by integrating these services into the company's Industrial Park, Flextronics significantly reduces response time for failure analysis and recommendations from on-site suppliers and internal processes.
Additional services provided by the Technology Center include qualification of new processes, technologies and materials; product and process qualification during early engineering verification and design validation; characterization of product during new product introductions; and centralized development of in-circuit test programs and X-ray laminography programs.