Luminous growth in MEMS test equipment market

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) include several mechanical elements, such as sensors and actuators, that are integrated on a common silicon substrate through microfabrication technology. MEMS can also be referred to as smart matter, micromachines, or microsystems technology (MST).

Test equipment for optical and inertial MEMS devices generated worldwide revenues of $56.5 million in 2007, with inertial MEMS equipment making up the majority of the total. Note: All figures are rounded.

MEMS devices contain electrical and mechanical components. In today's testing environment, it is much easier to test the static electrical characteristics using test methods such as wafer probing, electrical trimming, and final test at temperature. Mechanical testing verifies the resistance to mechanical shock, stiction, and other MEMS-specific failure modes.

The vendors in the MEMS test market face a huge challenge to perform dynamic testing on the MEMS devices. A new generation of test equipment is required for testing under severe conditions—such as high temperature, pressure, and humidity—and the new equipment must account for stiction, which refers to the friction between moving parts inside a chip due to factors such as over-range of input signals or electromechanical instabilities.

Testing of MEMS devices at an early production or preproduction stage is essential to reducing production costs and time to market. Once the packaging is complete, any test results for a failed device will lead to an increase in production costs. The market is slowly moving toward a situation where there are several solutions available for testing MEMS devices under environments such as high pressure, near-vacuum, and severe temperatures.

The testing of the sensor elements of either inertial MEMS or optical MEMS (MOEMS) is critical before the packaging is done. (MOEMS are used in applications such as IR imagers, spectrometers, bar-code readers, maskless lithography, adaptive optics, and automotive heads-up display.) But certain challenges exist when performing testing at an earlier stage, including trying to simulate the exact environment under which the device might be used at a later stage. In addition, the lack of standards and specific test equipment extends the challenge to test these MEMS devices. Currently, there is little off-the-shelf MEMS test equipment in the market.

In a recent market study, we found that the total world MEMS test-equipment market generated revenues of $56.5 million in 2007, which represented a growth rate of 10.1% over the previous year. In 2007, test equipment for inertial MEMS and MOEMS contributed approximately 60% and 40%, respectively.