Taipei, July 29, 2008 (CENS)--In light of increased availability of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), heavyweight Taiwanese chipmakers are competing for an advantageous position in the market.

Asia Pacific MEMS System Corp., in which United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) holds dominant stakes, recently announced it would contract UMC to make its products designed on sub 0.35-micron processes.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), currently the world`s No.1 pure silicon-foundry supplier, has begun using its 150-mm and 200-mm fabs to make MEMS used in inkjet heads of printers after starting to make contact image sensor (CIS) in cooperation with Omni Vision Inc. TSMC plans to shoot for foundry orders for radio-frequency MEMS and digital mirror device (DMD) next year.

Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) Inc. has won considerable orders to test and package automotive sensor devices, RF-MEMS modules, biochips, and silicon-based microphones in cooperation with subsidiary Universal Scientific Industrial Co., Ltd. for Nordic, VLSI, austriamicrosystems AG, and Medtronic. Industry watchers note that MEMS accounts for around 50% of packaging and testing costs.

For a long time, MEMS technology has been mostly applied to automobiles and industrial equipment. Recently, it has been increasingly built into consumer electronics like mobile phones and game consoles. Apple iPhone and Nintendo Wii are two typical consumer applications of the technology.

Demands for MEMS devices have surged sharply along with brisk growth of consumer-electronics market. Besides foundries TSMC, UMC and ASE, IDMs Texas Instruments (TI) and Sanyo have also entered MEMS market.

TSMC, UMC and ASE and Their MEMS Deployments

Company	TSMC	UMC	ASE
Operation gravity	Front-end MEMS wafer manufacturing and back-end packaging and testing	Front-end MEMS wafer manufacturing	Back-end MEMS packaging and testing, MEMS module
MEMS subsidiary	VisEra Technology, XinTech	Asia Pacific MEMS, PixArt Imaging	Universal Scientific
Product lines	Digital mirror device, CMOS sensor, inkjet head, RF-MEMS, electronic gyroscope, silicon-based microphone	CMOS sensor, inkjet head, RF-MEMS, silicon-based microphone, and pressure sensor	Automotive sensor, RF-MEMS module, biochip, digital mirror device, silicon-based microphone
Major customers	Himax Technologies, Omni Vision, Avago, InvenSense, Qualcomm, NXP Semiconductor, Silverbrook	Nintendo, BenQ, Mobiletron Electronics	Nordic, VLSI, austriamicrosystems, Medtronic, NXP Semiconductor, STMicroelectronics

Sources: The companies

(by Ken Liu)