Consumer Electronics Growth Supercharging MEMs Microphone and Speaker Market

NEW TRIPOLI, PA, - Record-breaking growth in consumer electronics products such as cellular phones, PDAs, MP3 recorders, and digital cameras has had a tremendous impact on MEMs microphones and speakers in 2004, according to the report "Market Analysis of Acoustic Products: Microphones, Speakers, Codecs, and End-Applications," recently published by The Information Network, a New Tripoli, PA-based market research company.

 

The market is geared to grow from less than 1% of the 1.2 billion microphones sold worldwide in 2003 to 20% of the 1.6 billion units in 2006 - a compounded growth rate of 206.6%.  A similar growth rate in the microspeaker sector will propel the MEMs market in 2004 with 50 million units shipped.

 

Knowles Acoustics has emerged as the number one worldwide provider of MEMS acoustic components.  In May, the company inked an agreement with MEMSCAP source of its MEMS silicon microphone wafers. Also in May, Knowles signed a definitive manufacturing and supply agreement for MEMS wafer services with Sony Semiconductor Kyushu Corp to provide fabrication services for Knowles Acoustics designed MEMS microphone wafers.

 

"The strategic partner agreements, combined with Knowles' significant success in marketing this product, has propelled it to the top of MEMs microphone suppliers such as SonionMicrotronic (Denmark), powerhouses of traditional microphone such as Infineon Technologies, and a growing number of Chinese manufacturers," noted Dr. Robert Castellano, president of The Information Network. 

 

In addition to the Consumer sector, the Surveillance, Medical, and Monitoring markets have been doubling each year. The optical microphone with the MEMS technology that Phone-Or ( />Israel ) sells is the only passive microphone that exists, and is optimal for applications in hazardous environment, high magnetic fields (like the MRI), high RFI fields, and other environments that requires EMI/RFI immunity.

"The company's main revenues are in the surveillance market (microphones that cannot be detected by conventional ways) and optical stethoscope for through wall listening," added Dr. Castellano.

 

The Information Network is a consulting and market research company addressing the semiconductor, computer, and telecommunications industries.