For Mathieu Potin, MEMS analyst at Yole Developpement “It is very interesting to look at the growth rate of the different companies:

Silex has had the strongest growth with more than 100 percent (in dollar value, 78 percent in Swedish currency value), followed by X-Fab 89 percent and Tronic’s Microsystems 77 percent. All these players are fueling their growth with strong volume production and increasing demand from both existing customers and new customers.”

Only MEMSCAP is losing ground with custom production decreasing by 11 percent compared to 2006. Asia Pacific Microsystems is also flat in 2007 compared to 2006: the company has been involved in its merger with ChipSense and its integration within the UMC/Unimicron group and sales have been stable.

For Jean Christophe Eloy, CEO at Yole Developpement, “2007 was another very good year for MEMS foundries: strong and healthy growth for most of the players, but in 2008, the road will certainly be bumpier.”

Several MEMS foundries will suffer from a decrease of key customer sales, like Sony with the sales decrease of Knowles Acoustics due to limited growth of Knowles Acoustics sales and entrance of a second source for the microphone, IMT with the end of the production for one of its’ major customers, “but we think that in general the MEMS foundry business will have a growth rate of 25-30 percent in 2008, which is not bad.”

Source: Yole Developpement