Multisensor MEMS to undergo ‘colossal’ growth

According to iSuppli, shipments of multisensor MEMS packages in automotive electronic stability control (ESC) systems will begin in 2010 and grow quickly to reach 25.9million units in 2014. This would represent over 50% percent of the market. Shipments of multisensor MEMS packages for mobile handsets are forecast to take off in 2010 to reach 8.1million units, up from 2.7million in 2009. iSuppli predicts shipments during the next few years then will grow by 'tremendous leaps and bounds' to hit 305.0million units by 2014. Jérémie Bouchaud, analyst at iSuppli, said: "The rising use in vehicles of multisensor MEMS - also called 'combo' sensors - is in line with the projected increase in availability of automotive ESC systems, the computerised technology in vehicles designed to detect and minimise skidding by comparing the input of the driver with actual vehicle motion from accelerometers, gyroscopes and wheel speed." Bouchand believes that ESC systems will reach approximately 45million in 2014 - more than double from 19million in 2009 - driven by current fitment mandates in Europe, the US, Canada and Australia. "Bosch Group and Finnish company VTI Technologies (e.g., for Continental AG), will lead the use of multisensor MEMS packages in the automotive supply chain, according to iSuppli data," Bouchand continued. "Other companies likely to develop combo sensors include Denso Corp from Japan, as well as Freescale Semiconductor and Analog Devices. iSuppli says that overall, multisensor packages used for ESC applications are 5 to 10% cheaper than 'inertial clusters' - discrete sensor solutions of gyroscopes and accelerometers that have been combined on a printed circuit board in separate packages.