Combo sensors will almost triple from 2012 to 2013

FRANCE: 2012 was seen by many as a turnkey year for consumer combo sensors, with high volume adoption in platforms such as Samsung Galaxy S smartphones.

Since then, many developments have occurred, and the market acceptance of combo solutions has been extremely quick, not only for 6-axis IMU (adopted in a growing number of platforms) but also for 6-axis e-compass (shipments are reaching new records every month).

In addition, 9-axis solutions are being introduced to the market and innovative solutions should follow: with integration of pressure sensing, processing units, and RF capabilities.

According to Yole Développement, the combo sensor market is estimated to be $446 million in 2013, growing to $1.97 billion in 2018. This represents 21 percent of the global inertial consumer market in 2013, and will grow to an impressive 66 percent by 2018. While smartphones and tablets are now driving volume increases and adoption of combos, the picture should be different in 2018.

The next market wave should come from wearable electronics, where long-term market potential is huge. While combo sensors will take a significant portion of total market share, opportunities will remain for discrete sensors: from accelerometers used in basic activity trackers to gyroscopes for camera module stabilization.

The road was not so easy for inertial combos and some challenges still need to be solved. Outside of the offering, which is still smaller than with discrete sensors, combo sensors are sometimes said to be inaccurate or to create constraints for placement on the board (for magnetic field detection: a tiny magnetometer die is often preferred than a larger combo package). Footprint reduction was the only argument in favor of combos in the past.

However, it is fair to say that significant achievements have been made in the past couple of months. Most of the past yield issues have been solved, leading to lower price. In addition, combo solutions facilitate both qualification and testing at the integrator level, and development of sensor fusion. This report describes the motivations for each type of combo and analyzes the timing for market adoption for each end-application.

STMicroelectronics is the global leader in the inertial consumer sensor market with 42 percent market share. Only InvenSense and Bosch Sensortec are able to compete with it today. It is key to be able to control the different technologies or to establish the right partnerships to sell a large range of combo solutions.

STMicroelectronics is just starting to sell its own magnetometer in 2013, while Bosch has been very active in launching new product lines since 2012.

InvenSense has just partnered with Melexis as an alternative source to AKM for the magnetometer die in 9-axis solutions, although this is not official information.

Price is still sharply dropping, with IMUs sold to some large volume customers below $1 in 2013. To stay in the race, the 3 leaders are going to introduce technical innovations: monolithic integration of 6 to 9-axis, use of TSV, chip scale packaging, and active capping.

Current challengers and newcomers are eyeing this combo opportunity and expect to take market share while the supply chain is not yet mature. Kionix, Freescale, Alps Electric, Fairchild, Maxim and more than 10 other companies are targeting this market space. New business models are built and more fabless companies are likely to be involved in the combo market.