APPLICATION OF MEMS TECHNOLOGY IN CONSUMER ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS
Posted by Josephus van Kuijk on Tue, Jan 26, 2010 @ 08:08 AM
Today, consumer electronic products are mostly wireless mobile devices such as laptops, iPhones and iPods, and gaming controllers. There are several reasons why companies are pleased with the market pull associated with consumer electronics. First of all, the traditional markets for MEMS technology such as automotive and industrial applications has declined over the last year. And secondly, the potential number of MEMS devices that can be supplied to the consumer market is in the billions. This last point is relevant in more than one ways in that because of this potential high volume of MEMS devices, semiconductor manufacturers such as TSMC are all of a sudden interested in production of MEMS.
Let's look at the potential application of MEMS technology in consumer electronic products. The three MEMS devices that will see a rapid growth are Si microphones, accelerometers and RF MEMS. Nokia gave an excellent presentation during the MEMS Executive Congress in November 2008 (downloadable for MEMS Industry Group Members).
Just a year later, the list of MEMS devices that are designed for cell phones is growing, including; Pressure sensors and Gyroscopes for location based services (think GPS), Micromirrors for image projection (think Pico-Projector which still has not proven itself), Microdisplays for ultra low power displays and better picture in sunlight (think Mirasol), some devices inside which the consumer will never see such as Variable capacitors, RF Switches, FBAR, BAW and Oscillators. And micro fuel cells for longer battery life.
Image of the Board inside an iPhone pointing out the MEMS accelerometer
When you actually open up a smart phone you will find an accelerometer inside. View the tear down of an iPhone by UBM TechInsights in this video.
If you are interested to learn which MEMS devices are available on the market go to our MEMS product Blog.
Most of our interaction with computing devices has been through a keyboard, a mouse, and a screen or display. Smart phones have removed the actual mouse and keyboard and introduced the touch sensitive screen but MEMS technology is introducing the next level of interaction, motion sensing. Today seven out of ten games for the iPhone use the built-in MEMS accelerometer as a smart controller that allows users to tilt, shake and otherwise use motion to control games. Read this article about Invensense and their success in MEMS gyroscopes.
Wikipedia lists a number of smart phones that use acceleration sensors, look for the consumer electronics heading.
For now the computing growth given to us by Moore's law has driven the development of more compact computing devices and mobile consumer applications. We are just entering the era where these devices will be able to sense what's going on around us and present back to us targeted information.