Lyons, France — Driven by existing and new applications, the production of ferroelectric thin films will grow from 881,000 6-inch equivalent wafers in 2010 to 1,263,000 wafers in 2015, which translates into a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of +7.5 %, reported Yole Développement.
While ferroelectric thin films have been used for many years in integrated passives devices (IPDs), ferroelectric memories (FeRAM) and MEMS inkjet printheads, the market research firm expects new MEMS applications such as MEMS wafer level autofocus, RF MEMS, MEMS ultrasonic transducers, MEMS infrared sensors, and MEMS tunable capacitors to drive growth over the next several years.
While inkjet printhead applications and integrated passive devices (IPDs), including ESD/EMI planar capacitors, represent more than 90 percent of the production in 2010, other applications will reach 26 percent of the total production in 2015, said Yole.
Large industrial companies are already using ferroelectric thin films in various applications including NXP and STM for IPDs and Epson for MEMS. Panasonic, Fujitsu, Rohm and Ramtron are all using ferroelectric thin films in the production of FeRAMs, said Yole.
Over the next five years, many new players plan to adopt or evaluate ferroelectric thin films including SMEs such as Polight, Irisys, and NovioMEMS, and larger companies including Océ, Xaar, Delphi, IBM, and Philips research, according to the Yole report.