PARIS — French research and strategy consulting company Yole Développement has provided an analysis of MEMS switch and varicaps as it expects this emerging market will generate sales over $700 million by 2012.

According to Yole Développement (Lyon, France), the market of MEMS switches and varicaps shows good promises as MEMS-based switches will certainly substitute existing products and open the way for new applications, notably for cell phones in the short term.

In its report, Yole said it has highlighted the potential applications for MEMS switches and given a segmentation of defense, industrial, automotive and telecom field.

"There is complex market segmentation for the products to fit with a large set of parameters for each application: supply voltage, size, and cost structure, RF power handling capability, reliability level, and fit with the supply chain requirements," stated Mathieu Potin, project manager at Yole Développement.

The MEMS switches and varicaps market has recently emerged with early sales level in 2006. Sales have been dominated by ATE (Automated Test Equipment) and other defense and industrial applications.

Yole added that six players, namely RadantMEMS, MEW, Advantest, XCOMwireless, MEMtronics, Wispry, are now selling or sampling products on the market. About twenty on-going product development projects are also mentioned in the report, concluded Yole.

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