ST Micro, TriQuint among top MEMS vendors in 2010

Oregon-based TriQuint placed eighth on the last, up from 16 last year, IHS said. TriQuint was propelled—as was STMicro—by landing MEMS chip design wins in both the Apple iPhone 4 and the iPad.

TriQuint, known for its GaAs and gallium nitride (GaN) devices used in power electronics, especially in RF amplifiers for cellphones, excelled in 2010 with its SAW and bulk acoustic wave (BAW) technologies. According to IHS, just one year after their introduction, TriQuint snagged 26 percent of the global market for BAW and SAW, mostly at the expense of Avago Technologies Ltd (the second largest MEMS maker).

According to IHS, TriQuint's MEMS sales rose by a record 778.6 percent to $74.7 million, up from a $8.5 million in 2009. STMicro had the second-highest growth rate among the top 10, rising by 63.5 percent to $353.6 million, up from $216.3 million in 2009. STMicro's accelerometers grabbed half the worldwide market in 2010 while its gyroscope was found inside the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Sony Move.

Both STMicro and TriQuint were propelled into becoming the fastest growing MEMS makers in 2010 by virtue of landing design-ins with both Apple's iPhone 4 and iPad. The iPad has three MEMS chips and the iPhone 4 uses six separate MEMS chips—including a digital mic in its headset—up from two MEMS chips in the iPhone 3GS.

- R. Colin Johnson
??EE Times