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Report on MEMS switches and varicaps

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CIOL Bureau
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LYON, FRANCE: Yole Développement has released its new report dedicated to MEMS switch and varicap. It is an exhaustive analysis of the potential applications. The consulting company gives a segmentation of defense, industrial, automotive and telecom field.

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The 2009 market forecast has been adapted from July 2008 to reflect the market environment. MEMS switch and varicaps will generate $675 M sales by 2012 (12 percent lower than July 2008 forecasts). The market will be mainly driven by cell phones applications.

Source: Yole DeveloppementMEMS 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.

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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 two years.

Yole’s report highlights the next leading players and which applications will drive the MEMS switch and varicap sales in the 2007-2012 period.

RadantMEMS, MEW, Advantest, XCOMwireless, MEMtronics, Wispry are currently commercializing or sampling products on the market and 20 additional products development projects have been listed in Yole’s report. M&A activity will certainly increase in the next five years in order to push forward the commercialization of these technologies like EPCOS did this year.

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The potential market for switches and varicaps is therefore large because MEMS based switches are expected to both substitute existing products and 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…” explained Mathieu Potin, Project Manager at Yole Développement.

Yole Developpement forecasts that the main market drivers for the cell phone applications are the following:

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* 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 M$ 675 sales by 2012 (12 percent lower than July 2008 forecasts) . The market will be mainly driven by cell phones application accounting for 85 percent of the 2011 market

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.

Yole’s 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.

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