Struggles in industrial market offset
by increasing interest from the cell phone industry
Get a global and in-depth view of the RF MEMS Switch Market:
- MEMS switch and Varicap applications
- Target price per application and dedicated end market
- Focus on RF MEMS switches for cell phone applications
- How and when will they be integrated in front end modules?
REPORT HIGHLIGHTS
MEMS switches and varicaps products are getting to commercialization today. These products either replace existing switching products or create new features. The industry is just emerging with early sales levels in 2006.
Successful sales of MEMS switches have been registered for ATE (Automated Test Equipment) and other defense and industrial applications since 2006. Despite a market growth in 2007 the two industrial market leaders, Teravicta and Simpler Network have nevertheless stopped their activity in December 2007. It will be a challenge for the industry to recover from this difficult start. But acquisitions in the field of the cell phone module industry (such as EPCOS acquisition of NXP MEMS varicap activity) raise commercialization expectations in the next 2 years.
Yole’s report highlights who is poised to be the next leading players and which applications will drive the MEMS switch and varicap sales in the 2007-2012 period.
Six players are currently commercializing or sampling products on the market (RadantMEMS, MEW, Advantest, XCOMwireless, MEMtronics, Wispry) and more than 20 additional products development projects have been listed in the report.
M&A activity will certainly increase in the next 5 years in order to push forward the commercialization of these technologies like EPCOS did this year.
The potential market for switches and varicaps is therefore large because MEMS based switches are expected to both:
- substitute existing products
- enable new applications, particularly for mobile phones within the short term
There is complex market segmentation for the products to fit with a large set of parameters for each application: Supply voltage, size, and cost structure, RF power handling capability, reliability level, and fit with the supply chain requirements…
Yole Developpement forecasts that the main market drivers for the cell phone applications are the following:
Weight and size benefit for space and ATE (Automated Test Equipment) applications
Increased RF switching performance at constant size and cost, for cell phone and radars applications
Ability to create switching matrix being low cost and good RF performances in wired and wireless telecom applications
MEMS switch and varicaps will generate over US$ 700M sales by 2012. The market will be mainly driven by cell phones applications.
Price erosion be a major concern from MEMS manufacturers as volume ramps up. Market leaders will have a major advantage in this complex technology development period.
This report not only describes the market at the player and application level, but it provide a global view of the RF MEMS switch market allowing to build diversification strategies taking into account technical requirements.
KEY FEATURES OF THE REPORT
- 6 fields investigated
- 13 applications evaluated
- 150+ companies listed
- Analysis on the complete value chain (Technology, Foundry, IDM, OEMs)
- 200+ Pages
This report gives an exhaustive analysis of the potential applications. It gives a segmentation of defense, industrial, automotive and telecom field. The market analysis details each application using the following criteria:
- Description of the application and the benefit of RF MEMS switches
- Function and specification requirements for RF MEMS switches
- Description of the final product market players and trends
- Analysis of the competitive technologies and players
- Analysis of the RF MEMS switches market
Global market evaluation of the RF MEMS switch applications: component volume in Munits, Average Single Price (ASP), and 2007-2012 value forecasts
Description of the products and technologies: product specifications, technological trends and business trends
Evaluation of major players market share and potential new entrants
The main challenges facing the RF MEMS switch industries are discussed in order to forecast the evolution of the global MEMS industry and its impact on each market.
RSS FEEDS
The report gives an exhaustive analysis of the potential applications. It gives a segmentation of defense, industrial, automotive and telecom field. The market analysis details each application.