When your iPhone's screen automatically reorients itself, it's using a nascent silicon technology expected to become a $1.7 billion market by 2013.
Apple uses an accelerometer to reorient the iPhone's screen
(Credit: Apple)It's called an accelerometer--and the iPhone brought these devices into the mainstream.
"When you turn your iPhone to the side and the screen automatically adjusts from portrait to landscape view, there's an accelerometer at work. And when you swing your (Nintendo) Wii controller and bowl a virtual strike, there's an accelerometer at work there too," iSuppli noted in a report released Thursday. The market for these devices is expected to grow to $1.7 billion in 2013, up from $947.7 million in 2007, according to the market research firm.
Accelerometers are based on another burgeoning silicon field, Microelectromechanical Systems, or MEMS--also referred to as micromachines. MEMS are made up of components typically no larger than 100 micrometers in size and usually integrate a microprocessor and other components, such as the microsensor found in the iPhone's accelerometer.
Accelerometers in recent years have emerged as a popular input device for some of the world's hottest electronic products, causing shipments to boom, according to iSuppli. "Due to this rapid sales growth, accelerometers by 2013 will displace the current leading MEMS products--inkjet heads and Digital Light Processing (DLP) chips--to become the dominant type of MEMS device sold worldwide in 2013," said Jérémie Bouchaud, iSuppli principal analyst for MEMS, in a statement.
"Consumers' desire for motion-sensing in smart phones and video game systems will boost demand for accelerometers," Bouchaud added.
... Read moreTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the largest contract chip manufacturer in the world, will crank up its MEMS foundry business. Micro-Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology is used in Apple's iPhone and the Nintendo Wii.
Nintendo Wii uses MEMS technology for motion detection
(Credit: Nintendo)MEMS typically have a microprocessor and other components such as microsensors. For example, MEMS technology is used in the iPhone and Wii to allow these devices to detect motion and changes in orientation.
In the iPhone, a device called an accelerometer detects when the user rotates the iPhone from portrait to landscape modes, then automatically adjusts the display, so the entire width of a web page or a photo can be seen in its proper aspect ratio.
Hewlett-Packard also uses MEMS technology for its inkjet print-head that combines integrated electronics with microfluidic channels to control ink droplets when printing.
TSMC will provide manufacturing services such as surface micromachining and manufacturing processes for CMOS-MEMS integration and packaging, according to Nikkei's Tech-On. (CMOS stands for complementary metal oxide semiconductor, a common class of integrated circuits used in microprocessors.)
MEMS technology, which in the past was limited mainly to in-house manufacturing or automotive products, is now being applied to a raft of consumer devices and mobile phones, the Tech-On report said.
The MEMS industry was estimated to be worth US$5.95 billion in 2007 and it is expected to exceed US$10.771 billion in 2011, the report said.
TSMC will detail the company's MEMS business plan at a technical seminar in Tokyo on May 15, the report said.
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