Why so much difference between the MEMS market forecasts?

by Dr. Henning Wicht, Wicht Technologie Consulting

This question came up time and again— and several times at Semicon Europa this April.  We had presented the figures for MST/MEMS of the NEXUS  study which Wicht Technologie Consulting (WTC) coordinated and Yole Development presented its figures for MEMS.   Shortly thereafter InStat released a new MEMS market report.

But do these forecasts measure the same thing?  To compare apples with apples,  you need to remove the value of the read-write (RW) heads market from the NEXUS  figures.  Read-write heads account for half of the total market value in the NEXUS  report but they are not accounted for in the other two reports. Yole also did not include growing polymer microsystems in its figures.

Once you do remove the read-write heads, the figures are amazingly similar. The MEMS  market was valued around $6bn to $7bn in 2005 and will be around $10bn to $12bn at the end of the decade.

There is also a consensus on major trends:
•  Inkjet heads are stagnating.
• Inertial sensors keep growing now driven by consumer applications.
•  DLP are growing in spite of strong price erosion.
•  Microphones are skyrocketing.

But those who would miss animated panel discussions need not worry. Whereas we and Yole Development agree on a 15–16% CAGR for the coming years, InStat forecasts a more modest 6.8% per year until 2010.

We are more optimistic than others about the development of the RF-MEMS and MEMS microphones markets.  They are more optimistic than us about micro bolometers and liquid lenses.  Market forecasting is not an exact science and there will always be room for debate. That’s what makes our job interesting.

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