MEMS foundry ranking reflects volatile market
ST had annual MEMS foundry revenue of $174 million in 2017, up from about $160 million in 2016, and approximately three times the sales of second-ranked Teledyne-Dalsa. However, it should be noted that ST had MEMS foundry sales of $203 million in 2012 and $244.6 million in 2011. The company is likely using its extra manufacturing capacity as a buffer that it reduces as its own demand for MEMS manufacturing increases.
However, many other companies in the ranking are pure-play foundries.
MEMS foundries ranked by 2017 sales. Source: Yole Developpement.
Silex Microsystems AB (Jarfalla, Sweden), owned and backed by Chinese interests in Hong Kong since 2015, is a pure-play foundry that leapt above foundry giant TSMC into third place with sales of $50 million. TSMC, the archetypical pure-play foundry saw its MEMS foundry sales decline significantly year-on-year.
Meanwhile, Germany’s X-Fab grew strongly into fifth position with 2017 sales of $42 million up from $38 million in 2016. The fifth company is CMOS image sensor giant Sony with $40 million of foundry sales in 2017. However, Sony appears to be making its way out of foundry. In 2012 it was ranked second behind ST with annual MEMS foundry sales of $65 million.
Lower down the list Tower Semiconductor and Rohm increased the value of their MEMS manufacturing while Globalfoundries and Tronics Microsystems saw decreased MEMS sales.
Related links and articles:
News articles:
Silex spending $300 million on Chinese MEMS fab
Bosch open to making MEMS for others
Philips plans to double size of MEMS foundry
China buys Swedish MEMS foundry, builds fab
Rohm puts global focus on automotive, industrial
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