Foreword:

An excellent MEMS foundry will save time and cost for enterprises, universities, and scientific research institutions, thereby speeding up product development and market launch.

In recent years, with the development of MEMS technology and the gradual rise of market demand, the degree of MEMS standardization has been greatly developed, the platform foundation is being formed, and more and more MEMS products have vertical division of labor in the industry chain.

Global mainstream MEMS foundry types

①Pure MEMS foundry: This type of foundry does not provide any design services. The company conducts process development and foundry production services according to the MEMS chip design scheme provided by the customer. Representative companies include the company, TeledyneDalsa, IMT, etc.

② IDM enterprise foundry: Since the construction of production lines for wafer manufacturing, packaging and testing requires huge capital investment, the IDM model has extremely high requirements on the R&D strength, financial strength and market influence of enterprises.

After meeting their own wafer manufacturing needs, IDM companies will outsource the remaining production capacity to provide MEMS foundry services.

The companies that adopt the IDM foundry model are all giants in the global chip industry, mainly represented by Bosch, STMicro, Texas Instruments (TI) and other companies.

③ Traditional integrated circuit MEMS foundry: traditional integrated circuit (mainly CMOS) foundry companies are based on the original CMOS production line, nest some special production MEMS process technology, and convert the old production line into a MEMS foundry line.

Due to the outstanding mass production capacity, traditional integrated circuit companies tend to focus on providing foundry for MEMS products in the consumer electronics field with high shipments. Such foundry companies are represented by TSMC and Global Foundries.

Current Situation of International MEMS Foundry Industry

From a trend point of view, the global MEMS foundry business, especially the pure MEMS foundry business will expand rapidly; from a structural point of view, the proportion of the pure MEMS foundry business in the MEMS foundry business will gradually increase.

Among them, IDM manufacturers participate vertically in all aspects of the entire industry chain. For example, giants such as Bosch, ST, and TI have their own foundries.

From a structural point of view, the proportion of pure MEMS foundry business in the MEMS foundry business will gradually increase.

According to Yole Development’s forecast, the global EMS foundry business market size will reach US$1.668 billion in 2019, and the pure MEMS foundry business market size will exceed US$1.1 billion, accounting for about 66%.

International industry influences domestic foundry trends

With the large-scale development of the MEMS industry, the trend of division of labor has begun to appear in each link. Among them, Fabless manufacturers such as Knowles Electronics and InvenSense have ranked among the top 30 manufacturers in the global MEMS field.

Although more than half of the MEMS business is still in the hands of IDM companies, the specialized division of labor in the MEMS industry will become a trend after mass production and standardization of MEMS.

Since the application of MEMS sensors on the consumer side has gradually spread from the high-end market to some low-end mobile phones and wearable devices.

The start and development of the domestic MEMS sensor market is closely related to the rapid growth of China’s 3C products (including computers, communications and consumer electronics) and automotive electronics, and the transfer of the global electronics industry to China.

Nowadays, there is a huge gap between my country’s MEMS sensor products and foreign countries in performance indicators such as accuracy and sensitivity, and the scope of application is mostly limited to traditional fields.

Most of the mid-to-high-end sensor products are imported from abroad, and 90% of the chips rely on foreign countries.

At present, China’s MEMS industry is still in its infancy. At present, there are still only a handful of local MEMS companies with a certain reputation and shipment volume, and the main competitors in the Chinese market are still multinational companies.

Due to the technological gap between domestic MEMS companies and large international companies, they will focus on conquering the low-end consumer MEMS field in the future, and they still have strong competitiveness in these less demanding fields.

Domestic MEMS foundry manufacturing is mainly based on 6-inch and 8-inch production lines, packaging and testing are the strengths, and the application field is moving from mobile phones and automobiles to VR/AR, Internet of Things and other fields.

With the further specialization of China’s MEMS sensor industry, China’s local packaging and testing foundries will gradually improve.

OEM manufacturing is an important feature of China’s MEMS industry. The MEMS process is also gradually standardized and compatible, and MEMS and IC are much smaller than the volume. The IDM model has huge investment, difficult operation, and high requirements for the company’s comprehensive strength. Most MEMS companies are actually more suitable for the foundry model.

Major international foundry companies and their development status

① Silex Microsystems AB is a pure MEMS foundry, ranking second among pure MEMS foundries. Silex has 6- and 8-inch fabs in Jarfalla, Sweden, and has invested $12 million in upgrades in Sweden.

Its advantage is that it has the most advanced through-silicon via insulating layer process and manufacturing platform in the industry, and has developed more than 60 MEMS core patents including deep reactive ion etching. 3D integration provides the key process.

② STMicroelectronics (ST) is an IDM company and the world’s largest MEMS foundry. It not only provides MEMS products for automotive, industrial, and civilian use, but also produces MEMS for other companies as the world’s largest MEMS Foundry.

③ Teledyne Dalsa, as one of the representatives of pure MEMS foundries, has a 6-inch and 8-inch MEMS production line respectively. The company has rich manufacturing experience and has mass production practices. Its product composition mainly includes image sensors and micromirrors, which exist with Silex products. Partially overlapping.

④IMT is the No. 1 pure-play foundry in the United States, mainly providing MEMS process development and manufacturing services for fabless fabs. The foundry business covers many fields such as biomedical, industrial, optical, military, RF switches and magnetometers. Healthcare is its largest source of income.

⑤Tronics has gradually extended to the upstream of the industry chain from simply providing foundry services at the beginning of its establishment, forming the current full-service business model of “OEM + IDM”. It has a 6-inch MEMS production line in France, and a 6-inch MEMS production line and an 8-inch MEMS production line in the United States. The production capacity of the US factory can reach 60,000 pieces/year.

⑦ TSMC is the world’s first and largest professional integrated circuit manufacturing service (wafer foundry) enterprise, and also the world’s largest traditional foundry MEMS mode factory.

⑧TowerJazz provides world-class MEMS foundry solutions. It has 150mm and 200mm MEMS manufacturing capabilities in 6-inch, 8-inch and 12-inch manufacturing plants around the world, and has the ability to rapidly implement mass production and gradually expand the scale of mass production. .

⑨Globalfoundries acquired GF’s 8-inch factory in Singapore for US$236 million, including factories, factory facilities, machinery and MEMS IP and other businesses. The core business of the factory is MEMS foundry.

Major MEMS foundries in China

SMIC entered the MEMS industry in 2008 and is currently the number one MEMS foundry in China. And the CMEMS technology developed in cooperation with Silicon Labs builds the MEMS structure directly on the standard CMOS wafer, thus realizing the “CMOS+MEMS” single-chip solution for cable laying.

Shanghai Advanced: It has transformed from a traditional analog chip foundry to MEMS foundry, and has made significant progress in the field of MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) foundry. While building a domestic MEMS process production platform, the first MEMS process production line has entered mass production.

As one of the world’s first-class IDM manufacturers focusing on MEMS sensors, Hanking Microelectronics has an advanced 8-inch MEMS chip industrialized scale production line, and its process capability covers the whole process of MEMS chip production. In February of this year, its 8-inch MEMS chip back-end manufacturing line successfully started production.

CR Micro’s MEMS production line is the largest mass production line of MEMS sensors compatible with CMOS production lines in China, and has independently developed a number of domestically leading MEMS surface and bulk silicon processing technologies for the manufacture of pressure, silicon microphones, optoelectronics , temperature and humidity and other MEMS sensors.

On the 8-inch CMOS-MEMS manufacturing platform, HHGrace has successfully achieved full compatibility of MEMS devices with standard CMOS processes and production lines. The tape-out products include magnetometers, accelerometers, and pressure sensors.

The “8-inch MEMS international foundry line construction project” recently invested and constructed by the holding subsidiary of Saiwei Electronics Co., Ltd. was officially put into operation, with a production capacity of 10,000 pieces/month. This also marks that Beijing’s first commercial mass production, the world’s most advanced 8-inch MEMS chip production line has entered the actual production stage.

Conclusion: Competition in the global MEMS industry chain intensifies

Globally, MEMS production capacity is mainly concentrated in developed countries such as Europe and the United States. At present, the market share gap between major international MEMS foundries is not large, and the overall market concentration is low, so the competition is relatively fierce.

At present, there is no MEMS manufacturing enterprise with continuous mass production practice in China, but the domestic market demand is huge, and the policy and industry work together to promote the layout of the entire MEMS industry chain.

In the future, production capacity will be partially transferred to China. It is expected that the domestic MEMS market will be in a low-competition depression in the short term. With the development and maturity of the domestic MEMS industry, the friction between domestic MEMS enterprises will intensify in the future.