China-based microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sensor companies, including GoerTek Microelectronics (Goermicro) and MEMSensing Microsystems, have stepped up efforts to catch up with their bigger international peers.
Growth in the IR temperature measuring market at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 drove the development of MEMS pressure sensors and MEMS gas sensors. Work-from-home and home isolation due to the pandemic also accelerated market growth for radio frequency (RF) filters, MEMS oscillators, and MEMS microphones.
MEMS has the benefits of miniaturization, agglomeration, and low cost. It is widely used in consumer and automotive electronics, as well as industrial and medical applications. New application fields for MEMS, such as smart cars, smart medicine, and smart cities, have continued to expand with the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), AI, and 5G.
Although prospects for the MEMS sensor market are good, the global MEMS market is currently still dominated by major Western manufacturers such as Bosch, Broadcom, Qorvo, and STMicroelectronics (STM).
The global MEMS market was worth US$12.05 billion in 2020 and is estimated to reach US$18.26 billion by 2026 at an annual growth rate of 7.2%, according to data from Yole Developpement. Within the MEMS market, Bosch ranked first with sales totaling US$1.72 billion in 2020, followed by Broadcom in second with US$1.19 billion, and Qorvo in third with US$672 million. The question for Chinese MEMS companies now is how to break into this Western-dominated market.
China is the world's largest electronics production base and one of the world's largest industrial manufacturing countries. It consumes roughly 50% of global MEMS components. However, because China started research in the MEMS sensor field later than others, industry development lags behind the high market demand.
Since 2006, China has continuously pushed a number of development policies to support and regulate the industry, covering the technical blueprint, goals, and application promotion of MEMS sensor development. Furthermore, in recent years, local Chinese MEMS sensor companies continue to emerge in the industry.
Goermicro, formerly GoerTek's MEMS technology R&D center, applied for its first MEMS technology patent in 2005. In 2009, they cooperated with Infineon to successfully mass-produce MEMS acoustic sensors. GoerTek's MEMS acoustic sensors then entered the Apple supply chain in 2011. In 2017, Goermicro was officially split from GoerTek.
Yole Developpement pointed out that Goermicro was ranked 11th in the global MEMS market in 2018, moving up to 9th in 2019 and 6th in 2020.
Goermicro's growth trajectory reflects the rapid growth of China's smartphone and smart speaker markets. The introduction of voice recognition functionality in AirPods 2 and active noise cancellation in AirPods Pro, brought on by the true wireless stereo (TWS) trend, further spurred the MEMS microphone market.
Aside from Goermicro, MEMSensing, an early developer of MEMS microphone sensors in China, has also garnered attention.
MEMSensing has its own in-house R&D capabilities and core technologies for MEMS sensor chip design, wafer manufacturing, and packaging and testing. It can also design in-house ASIC chips that provide signal processing or driver capabilities for MEMS sensors, as well as locally produce its MEMS sensors. MEMSensing is one of the few Chinese companies in the MEMS sensor field that has in-house chip design and mass production capabilities.
MEMSensing vice president Carl Zhang pointed out that their MEMS products have already successfully entered several brand supply chains, but expanding production will take time. Additionally, the growth of smart home and wearables devices in recent years has widened the application scope of MEMS sensor products. MEMSensing is also actively deploying in emerging application markets such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).