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TSMC World's Leading Mems Foundry

A

Arthur Hanson

Well-known member
Morris Chang tipped his hand a few years ago when he said Mems where one of the three greatest business opportunities of our time. The opening of a Chinese fab gives them direct access to the last major market. Morris Chang also stated that taking technology from the latest fabs and applying it to older fabs is a key part of TSM's strategy. Making Mems is the ideal way of extracting value from older larger node fabs that makes the most efficient use of capital and IP. The Mems revolution is still in its early stages and TSM is slated to be the dominant Mems foundry, like it is the largest semi foundry. This strategy gives TSM a dominant position from the start by using all levels of their existing personnel, facilities, IP, capital in their existing customer and vendor ecosystem. This strategy allows TSM to undergo a another period of unprecedented growth over a much broader range of products. I could be wrong, but it fits with a strategy Morris Chang, a master strategist of the highest order, probably laid out years ago.

Comments and thoughts solicited and welcome.
 
Interesting you mention MEMs as it was a topic of discussion here in Taiwan. Wikipedia has this list of MEMs foundries but they are not ranked. Does anyone know the current ranking? I will definitely be doing more research on this... I do know that SEMI has a MEMs Summit in Europe now and associated coverage.

[table]
|-
! class="blocksubhead" ! Company
! class="blocksubhead" ! Service
! class="blocksubhead" ! Substrate materials
! class="blocksubhead" ! Production volume
! class="blocksubhead" ! Wafer diameters (in inches)
! class="blocksubhead" ! Type
! class="blocksubhead" ! Headquartered country
|-
| Asia Pacific Microsystems, Inc.(APM)
| MEMS foundry, MEMS manufacturing
| Glass Wafers, Quartz Wafers, Silicon Wafers, Structured Wafers, SOI Wafers and bonding material.
| High volume production
| 6
| Pure-play
|
23px-Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China.svg.png
Taiwan
|-
| Honeywell
| MEMS manufacturing
| Silicon
| High volume production
| 4, 6
| IDM
|
23px-Flag_of_the_United_States.svg.png
United States
|-
| Innovative Micro Technology (IMT)
| MEMS manufacturing
| Silicon
| High volume production
| 6
| Pure-play
|
23px-Flag_of_the_United_States.svg.png
United States
|-
| iX-factory
| Customised MEMS design and manufacturing
| Silicon and SOI, glass borosilicate or quartz, structured wafer
| Prototyping and middle-sized batch production
| 4, 6, 8
| Pure-play
|
23px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png
Germany
|-
| Micralyne
| MEMS design, manufacturing and packaging; microfabrication
| Silicon, SOI and various glasses
| From scale-up to high volume production
| 6
| Pure-play
|
23px-Flag_of_Canada.svg.png
Canada
|-
| Micrel
| MEMS manufacturing
| Silicon
| Low volume and prototyping
| 6
| IDM
|
23px-Flag_of_the_United_States.svg.png
United States
|-
| Midwest MicroDevices
| MEMS and Thin Film Device Manufacturing
| Silicon, Sapphire, SOI, Glass, Quartz
| Custom Process Development, Prototype, Pre-production, Small – Medium Volume Production
| 4, 6
| Pure Play
|
23px-Flag_of_the_United_States.svg.png
United States
|-
| Rogue Valley Microdevices
| MEMS and Biomedical design/manufacturing
| Silicon, SOI, Quartz, Glass, and Saphire
| Prototyping, Pilot, Low to Mid Volume Production
| 2, 4, 6, 8
| Pure-Play
|
23px-Flag_of_the_United_States.svg.png
United States
|-
| Semefab
| MEMS manufacturing
|
| High volume production
| 4, 6
| Pure-play
|
23px-Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg.png
United Kingdom
|-
| Silex
| MEMS design and manufacturing
| Silicon
| High volume production
| 6, 8
| Pure-play
|
23px-Flag_of_Sweden.svg.png
Sweden
|-
| Sony
| MEMS design and manufacturing
| Polymer
| Prototyping and high volume production
| 6
| IDM
|
23px-Flag_of_the_United_States.svg.png
United States
|-
| STMicroelectronics
| MEMS (including accelerometers, gyroscopes, digital compasses, inertial modules, pressure sensors, humidity sensors and microphones)
| Silicon
| High volume production
|
| IDM
|
16px-Flag_of_Switzerland.svg.png
Switzerland
|-
| Teledyne DALSA
| MEMS design and manufacturing with integration of individual foundry processes
| Silicon and polysilicon
| High volume production
| 6, 8
| Pure-play
|
23px-Flag_of_Canada.svg.png
Canada
|-
| Texas Instruments
| MEMS design and manufacturing
| Silicon
| High volume production
|
| IDM
|
23px-Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China.svg.png
Taiwan
|-
| Tower Jazz
| IC manufacturing
| Silicon
| High volume production
| 6, 8
| Pure-play
|
21px-Flag_of_Israel.svg.png
Israel
|-
| Tronics
| MEMS design and manufacturing
| Silicon, SOI and glass wafer
| Prototyping, low and high volume production
| 6
| Pure-play
|
23px-Flag_of_France.svg.png
France
23px-Flag_of_the_United_States.svg.png
United States
|-
| TSMC
| MEMS design and manufacturing
| Silicon
| High volume production
| 6, 8, 12
| Pure-play
|
23px-Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China.svg.png
Taiwan
|-
| uFluidix
| Microfluidics/MEMS design and manufacturing
|
| Small-Large volume production
|
| Pure-play
|
23px-Flag_of_Canada.svg.png
Canada
|-
| UMC
| MEMS manufacturing
| Silicon
| High volume production
| 8
| Pure-play
|
23px-Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China.svg.png
Taiwan
|-
| Xfab
| MEMS design and manufacturing
| Silicon and glass
| High volume production
| 6, 8
| Pure-play
|
23px-Flag_of_Germany.svg.png
Germany
|-
[/table]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MEMS_foundries
 
Dan, I have read over the past few years that TSM was the largest maker of Mems, but when I last looked I couldn't find a current ranking.
 
The last numbers I saw are from 2014 and had STMicro at number one, Sony at number two and TSMC at number three. TSMC and Sony were really close so maybe TSMC has passed them now but I doubt they caught up to STMicro.
 
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