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Will TSM Totally Dominate MEMS?

Arthur Hanson

Well-known member
Just as TSM dominates the semi foundry business, it fully has the capacity to dominate MEMS by leveraging its wide and varied semi technologies and large customer base to totally dominate the rapidly expanding and diversifying MEMs business. Due to its extremely wide variety of applications and totally new untapped areas, MEMS in combination with semis could open entirely new product categories and greatly expand existing ones. I feel their is no reason why TSM can't leverage semis and MEMS in a way no other company can even come close to. The only problem I see is the capacity of TSM to grow and I easily see TSM doubling or even tripling in size in the next five years if they feel they can handle the growth. The only impediment I see to this is the ability to attract and train the additional talent to pull off such a rate of growth. This growth is already feeding on itself as they put more and more distance between them and the competition. On this issue, I'm have no doubt TSM has mastered maximizing and training talent to its full potential. Any thoughts or comments on this appreciated.
 
TSM is in 5th place as a MEMS foundry, behind: STMicroelectronics, Teledyne Dalsa, Sony, Silex Microsystems.

illus_top_mems_foundries_yole_june2019.jpg


Lots more info at the Yole site. http://www.yole.fr/Top30_MEMS_Manufacturers.aspx
 
Daniel, thanks for the information, what's your opinion on how TSM will compete in this area? Also, I feel MEMS are going to be a high growth area that will become increasingly complex and costly to work in and this will favor power players like TSM that already has a handle on many technologies their competitors don't have. Any additional thoughts or comments appreciated. I also have no doubt current customers such as Apple will want to take full advantage of TSM's extensive resources and talent.
 
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TSM is not in the MEMS business directly. Only through their customers as required. STMicro is the MEMS king, always has been and always will be in my opinion.
 
In their recent earnings report Infineon stated that Silicon MEMS microphones were growing at 50% - you have to look at the MEMS IDM's like ST, Bosch, and Infineon, alongside the foundries. There also exists a long tail of very small players with manufacturing capacity that own specialized IP. One could imagine a wave of acquisitions ahead.
 
TSM is not in the MEMS business directly. Only through their customers as required. STMicro is the MEMS king, always has been and always will be in my opinion.

Dan, from the graph above, it looks like TSM is growing its business percentage at a greater clip than STMicro. It there any chance at MEMS becomes a larger business for TSM because of customer demands? Wouldn't TSM's MEMs business also have an advantage by spreading the IP and equipment cost over a larger base?
 
I took it Arthur was referring to the overall MEMS business. It's worth a reminder that the fabless model has not caught on significantly in this area.

The biggest volume products are from IDMs: Bosch, ST.
 
I took it Arthur was referring to the overall MEMS business. It's worth a reminder that the fabless model has not caught on significantly in this area.

The biggest volume products are from IDMs: Bosch, ST.

U235, thanks for the input, I definitely see the fabless model catching on in MEMS in the near future, especially since I see the types of MEMS expanding to cover ever more functions and combinations of functions. Any additional thoughts on this would be appreciated. This I feel is especially true since Morris Chang stated MEMS are one of the greatest opportunities going foward.
 
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