[Dan McCann]

While the global market for MEMS oscillators stood at $5.2 million in 2008, it’s expected to grow at an average annual rate of about 111 percent and reach $217 million by 2013, according to a study by the technology research firm Innovative Research and Products Inc.


Pictured here is SiTime's SiRes SiT8002 MEMS oscillator.

The forecast promises greater demand for the lithographic and micromachining processes used to manufacture MEMS technology. In its summary of the report, titled Silicon MEMS Oscillators—A Global Technology, Industry and Market Analysis, Stamford, Conn.-based iRAP noted that "quartz crystals are currently used for most high performance systems, but they are not economical when used with system integrated circuits due to costly hermetic packaging requirements. With MEMS, vibrating mechanical devices and wafer-level packages can be manufactured with conventional semiconductor technologies. This development highlights the shift from quartz to MEMS, and illustrates how designers optimize products to save time and money."

The report's highlights included:

• MEMS resonator companies will become time module companies, taking market share from quartz manufacturers and silicon timing device manufacturers. They will target application where the size and integration are key, leading to usage in almost all portable systems like PDAs, camcorders and MP3 players.
• The global silicon MEMS oscillators industry is characterized by about a dozen companies and institutions involved as device developers and manufacturers.
• Although computers and networking had the largest market share in 2008 (as much as 60%), by 2013, consumer and communications products will take over 55% share of the market, because of the segments' large growth rate--as much as 125% annually from 2008 to 2013.