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The Mems market is growing 12-16%/yr, while right now the semi market is flat. I feel the Mems and Mems type technology is going to be larger than the semi market in both value and quantity. I feel large scale Mems the size of display screens are going to be a large market. This will comprise of smart filters/channels of all types that are actively controlled, bringing intelligence to many devices that are now passive or very large scale if active. Desalination, energy transfer, active filtration, and batteries that can change specifications on the fly are but a very few of the devices using mems will appear. Heat exchangers of all type and any process that needs controlled transfer of energy, light, ions and such offer a very large opportunity by itself. This offers current companies vast opportunities to leverage current IP. The market for Mems will also expand the use of semis and in many cases the two will be integrated. This is where the future large opportunities are the market is already confirming it. Please post any interesting use of Mems.
I think Mems is a very interesting thing but market wise it is not that significant. The semi market is already around $340 billion. And (one) Mems market forecast looks as follows:
U.S. MEMS market by application, 2012 - 2022 (USD Million)
Besides, whenever MEMS is used in a device, should not this device have fair amount of semiconductors to make MEMS work? While I have no idea about the cost of MEMS parts but I think it's safe to say that in most current applications (phones, medical, automotive) the price of semiconductors accompanying MEMS is higher than the price of MEMS.
Mems and Mems technology are in their early infancy. I have been studying them for about five years and the some mems will be active materials in their own right. They will actually be chemical/heat/light/PH differential powered products. I believe Morris Chang has a vision for TSM and passed it on, especially when he said they are one of the greatest opportunities in the future. The way of applying various technologies to Mems is just starting. They will do the same thing to the physical world that semis did to the computational world. This will make for vastly increasing functionality at ever declining costs. This is the greatest opportunity for companies in the semi sector to leverage their IP, people, physical plant and ecosystems for high margins for a number of years. This also applies to people who already have many of the talents to take advantage of this if they round out their talents to take advantage of this. This area is about to turn into a modern gold rush, just like the early days of semis. Mems will turn into a 100 Billion business within ten years, although many devices and will not be called mems, although they are.
Arthur I can't take your speculation seriously anymore, because that's all it is - speculation! There is no evidence and no real expert on record claiming that MEMS will grow in that manner, so it's just fluff..
tty2, yanfeng, You obviously haven't learned from history. Intel thought they would only sell processors in the thousands when they developed the first one and they quickly learned a valuable lesson. I put seven figures on my speculation and got to that point from poverty by speculation that has been proved accurate by the market time and time again. Life is speculation, like when you go through a green light you speculate the other guy will stop at the red. You speculate all the time and so does everyone else. I have made mistakes, but to speculate and act is to grow, start growing. Science is nothing but educated speculation and acting on it. I also feel I'm in good company when Morris Chang "Speculates" that Mems are one of the greatest business opportunities of our times.
Also, if not for Mems, the growth in semis would be far lower for most of our modern devices have multiple Mems that make them possible and usable.
According to Morris circa 2014: The second (next big thing) is the integration of various sensors such as image, blood pressure, somatic, and environmental with microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). The third is ultra-low power consumption technology with the goal of allowing more devices to become power efficient. This should be ten times more efficient than present levels and preferably possessing a recharge frequency of once per week.
To which I agree 100%. Maybe not a big market in dollar size but big in volume and definitely an enabling technology for the next big things in semiconductor.
The line between semis and mems will continue to blur as new types of both are increasingly integrated. Just the applications in working with genes will open what will be large and growing markets in the future. Genetic sequencing devices are built around mems. Single use medical labs on an inexpensive chip for home use have the potential to lower medical costs which have become a major threat to our economy with large unfunded liabilities in Medicare and pension plans of all types totaling tens of trillions of dollars. Mems will be just like the semi industry which increases in variety and function every year. As the cost comes down, the number and functions will increase in penetration and scope. Chemical reactions of all types will present a whole near area of uses and functions to explore. Someone like Morris Chang more than most and with a brilliant mind would not call them one of the greatest opportunities without careful thought. As one who has listened to Morris Chang for almost twenty years and have found him to be conservative in his predictions, he would not call mems one of the greatest opportunities of our times unless it is. HIs access over the years to research, engineering talent and access to the coming technologies and money to execute is almost unmatched in the tech world. The line between Mems and Semis will blur and much of the dollar figures will become a matter of semantics, like the chicken or the egg and which came first. To say you know where mems will go is like predicting the changes that first Intel processor would bring. If you know the future, the market will reward you richly beyond belief, no one does.
The economics depend not just on volume, but leverage. Look at HDD, which pretty much from the time Alan Shugart walked out of IBM and set up the first non-captive manufacturer, has been an industry with booms and busts which overall added up to miserable profits, and certainly never dominated computing. The influences are subtle because Flash has been mostly profitable for the 15 years since SSDs became a thing, currently very profitable, while DRAM has gone through spectacular booms and busts but the booms seem to have dominated.
So my point is, what will be the leverage of MEMS? Yes we all have them now, there is MEMS in a billion handsets every year, but the suppliers remain relatively small companies. I think the way this is going the profit is controlled by those who aggregate the components into devices and systems. The individual devices may make for comfortable niches but will never be huge companies on that basis.
So if you are investing you want to look for what they enable. Home monitoring, navigation, health monitors, security, retail tags, self driving vehicles, industrial controls, etc.
There seems no indication of a breakout device like a CPU or a DRAM which has the leverage to command profits from the ecosystem. The closest to that might be if there is a dominant LIDAR system, or if someone invented a GPS that runs off a watch battery for a month, or an accelerometer with interferometer class drift that fits into a phone, something unique and enabling. So far, everything has competitive choices and buyers rule.
Tanj, MEMS will be as large as the semi industry as the spread of technologies and applications will be extremely broad with a range of science, packaging, fabrication methods, new materials never seen in such breadth and depth in probably any industry or company. Morris Chang saw this opportunity and probably felt TSM was one of the very few companies that could tackle this extreme spread of science, materials, fabrication technologies and customer trust to pull this off. This has the potential of enabling TSM to join the ranks of mega companies like the FAANGS.
