TSMC Announces Full-scale Entry into MEMS Market

May 1, 2008 18:01 Tsuneyuki Miyake, Nikkei Microdevices

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) of Taiwan, the largest Si foundry in the industry, will enter the MEMS foundry business in earnest.

TSMC unveiled its policy to enter into the MEMS business at a press meeting on April 30, 2008 and presented a roadmap of the MEMS process. The company will provide services such as bulk and surface micromachining and manufacturing processes for CMOS-MEMS integration and packaging. TSMC also intends to add new chip-to-chip bonding processes for the packaging service. Furthermore, the company plans to employ a coating process to tackle the sticking problem, which is inherent to MEMS.

Robert Chin-fu Tsai, director of MEMS program at TSMC, will detail the company's MEMS business plans at a technical seminar "MEMS International 2008," which runs from May 15 to 16, 2008.

The following are Tsai's views on the MEMS industry.

The MEMS industry is undergoing a major paradigm shift. This is because the applications of MEMS, which have been limited mainly to in-house manufacturing or automotive products thus far, are recently spreading to consumer devices and mobile phones. The MEMS industry was estimated to be worth US$5.95 billion in 2007 and it is expected to exceed US$10.771 billion in 2011. The average annual growth rate between 2007 and 2011 is expected to be 13%. The MEMS technology is not only utilized inside integrated device manufacturers (IDM) but also in fabless and venture companies. Thus far, most MEMS devices have been fabricated by IDMs alone, but the production has been gradually shifted to independent foundries.

Based on these circumstances, Tsai will present his opinions about trends in MEMS production at CMOS integrated MEMS foundries, which combines the CMOS and MEMS technologies.

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