ST may soon surpass TI in MEMS sales

ST capitalized on the demand for motion processing in mobile devices to achieve a 42 percent jump in MEMS sales from 2010 to $907 million. This has taken ST from a ranking of fourth in 2010 to be effectively on a par with TI. Yole predicted TI had MEMS sales of $913 million last year. TI's more mature micromirror MEMS business grew somewhat slower than ST's inertial sensor business for consumer applications.

ST garnered sales of $907 million last year while TI had MEMS sales of $913 million.

Similar to 2010, there is a clear top four in MEMS, with HP continuing to be significant on the basis of inkjet printing MEMS production and Robert Bosch now ranked fourth. The top four vendors sold $3.3 billion of MEMS products, Yole said. The top 30 companies accounted for almost 80 percent of total MEMS packaged device sales worldwide.

The mobile device market drove 40 percent or better annual growth across a range of sensor suppliers, according to Yole. Silicon microphone maker Knowles Electronics jumped from 18th spot on the Yole ranking in 2010 to fifth on 40 percent growth in its sales of MEMS microphones to reach $362 million in sales. Magnetometer supplier AKM jumped 46 percent, to $279 million and eighth place.

Meanwhile, InvenSense saw its sales climb 67 percent to $144 million with multiaxis gyroscope and motion sensing chips. Memsic Inc. entered the top 30 with an 80 percent jump in its magnetometer and accelerometer sales.

High volume consumer applications will continue to dominate the market but it will continue to evolve rapidly, Yole added.

"Growth is now coming from combos of accelerometers and magnetometers and from combos of accelerometers and gyros, which started to ship in volume last year," said Laurent Robin, inertial MEMS analyst at Yole. "Companies who make only accelerometers will have to change."

- Peter Clarke
??EE Times