ALISSA M. FITZGERALD, PhD, Founder and CEO, A.M. Fitzgerald & Associates, LLC
MEMS, now a forty-year-old industry, continues to reinvent itself. In 2025 and beyond, we can expect to see existing MEMS devices reimagined in new thin-film piezoelectric materials such as scandium aluminum nitride (ScAlN) and lead zirconate titanate (PZT), which will dramatically improve functionality, precision, and durability. We will also see novel MEMS devices leveraging these unusual materials. On the production side, the advent of 300mm-capable MEMS foundries will facilitate heterogenous integration of MEMS device wafers with CMOS electronics wafers providing drive/sense, signal processing and edge computing.
Over the past decades, the MEMS industry leveraged the 1990s-era capacitive comb-drive architecture to manufacture billions of sensors for consumer and automotive applications. While capacitive MEMS currently dominate the market by volume, expect piezoelectric MEMS or “piezoMEMS” — an alternative architecture leveraging piezoelectric thin films to transduce displacement and voltage — to rapidly gain traction and eventually replace the comb drive. The industry research firm Yole Intelligence, for example, predicts that almost one-third of all MEMS wafers will contain piezoelectric materials by 2029.
Today, most piezoMEMS are RF filters; however, new products and end uses continue to emerge. In transportation, piezoMEMS gyroscopes will augment precision navigation for drones and self-driving vehicles operating in a GNSS-denied environment. PiezoMEMS will power mirrors for visual and optical telecom systems, micro-speakers for immersive audio, and haptic actuators for tactile feedback in the metaverse. PZT MEMS in particular is driving the development of portable ultrasonic imaging and new forms of therapy, an achievement that will enable multiple medical innovations from diagnostic imaging to ablative surgery. Paired with AI-enhanced data analysis, a new generation of low-cost, handheld ultrasonic imagers will help to transform global healthcare by making advanced diagnostics widely accessible.
The Sprint to 300mm
This year, the MEMS foundries Rogue Valley Microdevices and Silex Microsystems announced construction plans for 300mm MEMS wafer lines. At 300mm, MEMS makers will have access to state-of-the-art semiconductor process tools and cost-effective production of centimeter-scale die such as genomics chips and microfluidic diagnostic chips. Significantly, a MEMS foundry that can handle 300mm wafers offers efficient integration with advanced CMOS wafers for heterogenous integration of complex system products such as infrared or ultrasonic imaging arrays.
MEMS continues to be a field of creativity and innovation. New architectures such as piezoMEMS and the coming availability of MEMS on 300mm wafers portend new waves of business opportunities and industry growth.
