Today, consumer electronic products are mostly wireless mobile devices such as laptops, iPhones and iPods, and gaming controllers. There are several reasons why companies are pleased with the market pull associated with consumer electronics. First of all, the traditional markets for MEMS technology such as automotive and industrial applications has declined over the last year. Secondly, the potential number of MEMS devices that can be supplied to the consumer market is in the billions. This potential high volume of MEMS devices has certainly sparked the interest of semiconductor manufacturers, who have certainly now found themselves interested in the production of MEMS.

Image of the board inside an iPhone, highlighting the MEMS accelerometer

The three MEMS devices that will see rapid growth are Si microphones, accelerometers and RF MEMS. Just a year after Nokia's presentation during the MEMS Executive Congress in November 2008 and the list of MEMS devices that were designed for cell phones grew considerably, including; Pressure Sensors and Gyroscopes for location based services (GPS), Micromirrors for image projection (Pico-Projector, still to prove itself), Microdisplays for ultra-low power displays and better picture in sunlight (Mirasol), some devices inside which the consumer will never see, such as Variable Capacitors, RF Switches, FBAR, BAW and Oscillators, and micro fuel cells for longer battery life.

When you open up a smart phone, such as the iPhone, you will find an accelerometer inside. Most of our interaction with computing devices has been through a keyboard, a mouse, and a screen or display. Smart phones have removed the actual mouse and keyboard and introduced the touch sensitive screen, with MEMS technology introducing the next level of interaction, motion sensing. Today, seven out of ten games for the iPhone use the built-in MEMS accelerometer as a smart controller that allows users to tilt, shake and otherwise use motion to control games.

For now, the computing growth given to us by Moore's law has driven the development of more compact computing devices and mobile consumer applications. We are just entering the era where these devices will be able to sense what's going on around us and present back to us targeted information.

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