What is the current status of the MEMS pressure sensor industry?

According to Yole’s analysts, automotive, consumer and avionics are the most dynamic markets. In addition, market leaders are different for each market segment, except for some MEMS sensor manufacturers, Robert Bosch, who is leading both automotive and consumer and Honeywell, and NXP who are present in three of the following market: automotive, industrial, medical and avionics and high end. 

Based on their 20 years expertise in the MEMS & Sensors area, Yole’s analysts propose today a comprehensive technology and market analysis of the MEMS pressure sensor industry. Including 29 applications, the report identifies the key driving forces and restraints for each pressure sensor market and application, and provides accurate market value and volume forecasts.

This new analysis also details the competitive landscape with market shares globally and by market. In addition, analysts propose key technical insight on main pressure technologies and main technological trends, reverse engineering trends for TPMS and consumer applications, technological landscape.

The automotive industry is the oldest and the biggest market for MEMS pressure sensors. Therefore, powertrain applications represent more than 50% of the pressure sensors business, followed by safety, with TPMS being the biggest single automotive application.

Driven by CO₂ emission reduction and automation, pressure sensors will increasingly be used in the next five years, especially in China. Indeed government’s regulations will require pressure sensors for several applications. These include TPMS, diesel and gasoline particle filters (DPF, GPF) and fuel tank evaporation (EVAP).

In parallel, the consumer market is now the second largest pressure sensor business, thanks to recent rapid adoption in high-end smartphones and tablets. This will further extend to Android mid-to-low value smartphones, driven by new use cases, such as indoor and outdoor navigation. Lower sensor costs and better accuracy and power also enable new applications to grow, such as wearables, electronic cigarettes, drones, and smart homes.

Avionics and high-end applications are still niche markets, but exhibit the fastest market growth thanks to the dynamic aircraft market and MEMS taking over from traditional technologies. 

The medical and industrial markets are growing at a moderate rate because there is no significant change in term of applications, with one exception. New medical smart inhalers are in between the medical and consumer markets, and pave the way for many future medical consumer IoT applications.

The competitive landscape varies greatly with the type of market addressed,” asserted Yann de Charentenay, Technology & Market Analyst, Photonics, Sensing & Display at Yole. He detailed: “In both the high-volume automotive and consumer markets, Robert Bosch is clearly the dominant leader. This is a unique position. Robert Bosch has succeeded in leveraging its automotive product leadership to become leader in the newer consumer market.”

Robert Bosch has aggregated both markets’ production volume to reduce cost, and further increase its competitive advantage. Other players like Infineon, Sensata, Denso and Melexis are mainly focused on automotive, while STMicroelectronic and Alps serve the consumer market. Only TE Connectivity and NXP also have multimarket presence.

The key players are large groups active in various MEMS sensors, with inertial, pressure and gas sensor devices. Vertical integration is usual in automotive at companies like Bosch, Denso and Sensata, but not in consumer, because systems are smaller and thus there is no need for tier one component suppliers.

The medium-to-low-volume medical, industrial, avionics and high-end markets all have many of the same key players. They include Honeywell, Amphenol, NXP, TE Connectivity, Omron, First Sensor, Merit, Elmos SMI, and TDK. These companies grow their business by targeting multiple markets, and by making added-value modules. There are also pure avionics and high-end market players, such as Kulite or Memscap.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) between Amphenol and GE, Sensata, Schrader and CST, TDK and Invensense, and Qualcomm, NXP and Freescale all included pressure sensor activities, and activity has therefore been concentrated. The budget for future acquisitions will probably exceed $100m. The MEMS pressure sensors from Yole report lists future possible targets, and ranks them to help M&A decision makers.