Global economic uncertainty last year impacted specialty component markets, including high-value microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Soft demand for medical electronics and industrial products reduced the growth rate of these devices last year to just 6.5 percent from 12.5 percent in 2011, but the projection is for a steady improvement in the next couple of years, according to market research and analysis firm IHS
The high-value MEMS market remains the second-fastest-expanding area in the broader MEMS space, coming in after the mobile and consumer market but leading the data processing and automotive segments. High-value MEMS accounted for 19 percent of the total MEMS industry last year, and grew from $1.53 in 2011 to $1.63 billion in 2012.
This year will see a slightly improved 7.4 percent increase to $1.8 billion as the industry starts to recover during the second half. Growth then picks up by 2014 and rises to 10.3 percent, with 2015 and 2016 also forecast to experience solid growth rates of 9.0 percent
“The high-value MEMS market last year suffered a deceleration in growth because of continuing slow sales in medical electronics as well as a broad-based downturn in the industrial segment,” said Richard Dixon, Ph.D., principal analyst for MEMS & Sensors at IHS. “In medical electronics, the market performance has been sluggish for the last 18 months, echoing global economic uncertainties.”
The high-value MEMS market was aided slightly by strong performance in the telecom, aerospace, and oil and gas sectors, which served to ameliorate the negative effects of the slow-moving sectors, Dixon added.
Six sectors make up approximately 95 percent of the high-value MEMS market. The largest is medical electronics, accounting for more than 80 percent of total high-value MEMS shipments last year. Two high-value MEMS segments registered growth last year: building and home control and manufacturing and process automation. In the energy generation and distribution segment, results were mixed.
The one segment of the high-value MEMS industry that was up strongly last year was military and civil aerospace, according to IHS. Despite a decelerating missiles and munitions market, the segment more than made up with the extremely robust commercial aircraft sales.
