Micro Electric Mechanical Systems Why a career choice ?

The MEMS market forecast by Yole Development calls for $10 billion by 2010 and $14 billion by 2012. [For 2008, Jean Christophe Eloy, CEO of Yole, expects the market to be $7.8 billion. This represents a combined annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14 percent for the 2007–2012 period. The packaging cost of a MEMS product in general is between 60 and 80 percent. Thus MEMS packaging could be a $7 billion market by 2010 and $10 billion by 2012.

The MEMS devices that make up the market forecast are, for example, inkjet (IJ) heads, pressure sensors, silicon microphones, accelerometers, gyroscopes, MOEMS devices, microbolometers, microdisplays, microfluidics, radiofrequency (RF) MEMS, microtips, microfuel cells, and emerging MEMS. These MEMS devices can be applied to the automotive, aeronautics, consumer, defense, industrial, medical, life science, and telecommunication industries. Their units and market values have been provided by Yole Development and are
shown, which also include the forecasts up to 2012. It can be seen that the value of MEMS production is expected to double in 2012 (from 2007) and that the total units of MEMS production
are expected to quadruple in 2012 (from 2007).

MEMS value market forecast for 2006–2012 ($ US millions).

According to Jean Christophe Eloy, whose company tracks 150 MEMS applications, RF MEMS is expected to have the highest growth (50 percent), followed by microfluidic chips for drug delivery (42 percent), silicon microphones (32 percent), microfluidic chips for diagnostics (23 percent), microtips and microprobes (22 percent), and microbolometers (20 percent). Eloy also said that the most promising MEMS devices include accelerometers for humanmachine interfaces, with a CAGR exceeding 120 percent, followed by RF-MEMS devices for automatic test equipment (81 percent).

MEMS volume market forecast for 2006–2012 (millions of units).