Survey of Current Trends in the MEMS Market and Market Projections
share is expected to gradually decrease to 55% in 2010
and just over 51% in 2015, while the market share of
optical MEMS, RF-MEMS, microfluidics, and chemicaland biological MEMS is expected to show some, albeit
gradual, increases annually.
Hence, the current MEMS market is led by theautomotive and telecommunications fields, with afocus on MEMS sensors. While this trend is expected
to continue, it is thought that market expansion will belinked to the fusion of optical MEMS, RF-MEMS,microfluidics, chemical and biological MEMS, and thelike with optical technologies, and efforts toincorporate new key technologies, such as integrated
micro-nano manufacturing technologies uniting nanoand biological processes.

1. Objective of the Survey
The Micromachine Center conducted this survey
on commission from NEDO. The objective of thesurvey was to gather the latest market data in order toanalyze the current scale and industrial structure of
the MEMS-related market and to forecast future
trends, as well as to provide basic data required forconducting a rolling review on a strategic map ofMEMS technology.
2. Method of the Survey
To calculate the size of the MEMS-related market,
we defined two indexes: MEMS contribution andMEMS value ratio. Some components included inexisting products or equipment can be replaced withMEMS technology as a result of numerous factors
including technological innovation, improvements inperformance, and manufacturing costs. The MEMS
contribution is calculated by estimating the portion
that can be replaced with MEMS technology inproducts or equipment that may incorporate MEMS.
The MEMS value ratio is the part of the estimatedportion actually employing MEMS technology thataccounts for the value of the estimated portion.
<MEMS market scale>= <Production volume> x <percentage of MEMS
contribution> x <MEMS value ratio>
The future market of MEMS was predicted for 2010
and 2015 with consideration for the market growth ofproducts and an increase in MEMS applications.

4. MEMS Industrial Structure in Japan
In order to see the total picture of MEMS-relatedindustries, we distributed a questionnaire to MEMSrelated companies and used the responses on thisquestionnaire together with the results of the MEMSmarket survey to analyze the domestic MEMS
industrial structure.
While nearly 80% of all companies surveyed
working on MEMS projects that are currently or areexpected to be promising enterprises, just over 50%of these companies indicated that the MEMS-related
projects accounted for less than 2% of their overallbusiness, and nearly 90% of the companies surveyed
indicated that the MEMS-related projects accounted
for less than 10% of their business. Although theseresults imply that the current percentage of MEMSrelated business conducted at MEMS-relatedcompanies is low, the responses show that
expectations for MEMS are high and suggest a trendof companies actively expanding their MEMSbusiness.
Further, MEMS device manufacturers are currentlyexhibiting a trend toward expanding their business
into MEMS sensors, which currently carry great
importance in the MEMS market, and optical MEMS
and RF-MEMS, for which the market is expected toexpand in the near future. However, future surveys
are expected to show an interest in expanding into
µTAS-related devices such as microfluidics andchemical and biological MEMS.
Further, while a majority of the companies still
have too few personnel involved in MEMS projects andresearch and development on MEMS and currently
invest less than 5% of their MEMS-related sales in
research and development, a majority of thecompanies indicated that training personnel in MEMS
and reinforcing collaboration between industry andacademia are solutions to the problem.

3. MEMS Market Scale
The domestic MEMS market share for 2005 wasabout 440 billion yen. We predict this share will
increase to 1.17 trillion yen in 2010 and 2.4 trillion yenin 2015.
MEMS-related Market Scale

Market scale (x 100 million yen)

Current market share (FY 2005)
Predicted market share for FY 2010
Predicted market share for FY 2015

439.73 billion yen
1.17434 trillion yen
2.40743 trillion yen
Agriculture, forestry, and fisheries
Aerospace
Urban development
Automotive
Environment
EnergyBiotechnology
Medical and welfare
Precision instruments
Manufacturing technology
Amusement
Household electronics
Telecommunications

25,00020,00015,00010,0005,0000FY 2005

FY 2010

FY 2015

When viewing the market share for MEMS-related
products by industry, the automotive andtelecommunications fields occupy 71% of the overallmarket. These two fields are expected to account for
70% of the overall market in 2010 and drop to 67% in
2015. However, the market share of other industries isexpected to gradually increase, with particularly
remarkable expansion in the fields of amusement(game machines), precision instruments, and medicaland welfare equipment.
Viewing the market scale by type of MEMS device,
MEMS sensors accounted for just over 57% of theapproximately 440 billion yen market in 2005. This

5. Conclusion
From this survey, it is clear that MEMS-relatedindustries view MEMS devices as the core of Japan’s
future principal manufacturing industry and wish toexpand into this field, although the actual scale andgrowth of this expansion is uncertain. Hence, while themarket share for MEMS has been slow to rise, theacceleration in development in MEMS technology
gives us great hope that the results of thisdevelopment will be reflected in the market, leading torapid market growth.

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