According to IHS iSuppli, the MEMS market briefing, in the high-value military aviation, MEMS pressure sensor market this year will be double-digit rates, strong growth, and there is ample room for expansion in the future, more lucrative applications.
ST's MEMS pressure sensor
Military and civil aviation field pressure sensor operating income this year will reach $ 35.7 million, an increase of 20% from $ 29.7 million last year. MEMS pressure sensor operating income from these two areas are relatively small, and can not the MEMS revenue be compared with the field of automotive or consumer, but the next few years can guarantee steady growth, especially since few other devices can withstand the extreme work environment.
2016, military aviation MEMS revenue will reach $ 45.5 million, a five-year compound annual growth rate of 9%.
Military aviation belonging to the so-called high-value MEMS applications, this area also includes medical electronics. In this area, the average sales price of sensors and actuators is much higher than other comparable field of MEMS. Overall, the operating income of the high-value MEMS industry this year will reach about $ 283.6 million.
Despite the global economic crisis with the United States to control the defense budget is an adverse impact, but strong growth is expected military aviation field of MEMS. The global economic crisis and the U.S. defense budget is limited, resulting in many military and civil aviation projects reduced to slow down or even canceled.
There are two aspects of the reason to support the optimistic view. In the military aspects of the long-range air and naval forces continued attention, unmanned aerial vehicles, surveillance and reconnaissance or smart weapons development priorities, which will promote the upgrading of weapons and electronic content. The downsizing of the armed forces of the United States Government and intelligent plan, will be involved in the reduction of the scale, but only forces personnel will be affected, and weapons systems will not be affected.
In civil aviation, due to the strong demand of the European EADS Airbus A320 and Boeing 787 wide-body aircraft, the recovery that began last year is continuing. EADS and Boeing have received over 2000 aircraft orders, to help this year's 24% growth in commercial aviation.
Performance in extreme environments
A closer look at the main military and civil aviation applications, you can find that there are many places to use MEMS pressure sensor. Including the flight data system, environmental and cabin pressure, the hydraulic system in the fuselage, engines and auxiliary power equipment, as well as a variety of other applications, such as doors, an oxygen mask, flight test and structural monitoring.
Overall, aircraft, jet aircraft, propeller aircraft and the number of helicopters used in the pressure sensor can be very large. For example, the large jet aircraft up to 130 sensors.
For engines and other harsh environment applications, and 13 engine pressure sensor and open smaller jets usually have six to seven sensors luxury airliner. The so-called Full Authority Digital Electronic Control (FADEC) In addition to need five to six converter (transducer). FADEC is an electronic engine controllers and related accessories for reception and analysis of multiple variables, including the air density and engine temperature.
Military or aviation MEMS pressure sensor using a package price can easily reach more than 1000 U.S. dollars. Compared to MEMS devices used in the car, the price gap is very huge, mainly because the former chip performance have higher requirements, and the need to maintain stability within the specified temperature range for 25 years, while the car is only required to ensure the stability of 10 years.
Overall, MEMS pressure sensor must be able to withstand the harsh environment of severe vibration, high G acceleration, extreme temperature and high-pressure overload affected. The military and aerospace applications such extreme environments. In addition, the sensor must be in such a difficult environment showed a perfect performance, high accuracy, low drift and long-term stability. Must meet these demanding requirements in a very small package, and lighter weight. In these terms, MEMS pressure sensor can dominate the military and aviation.
Vendors and products
MEMS suppliers to provide different levels of integration. The United States, for example, Honeywell sensor manufacturer, can also produce a complete system. Kulite Semiconductor Products supplied to Boeing, Airbus, Canadair and Embraer sensor, providing products to many helicopters and military projects.
U.S. Eaton Corp. Might buy MEMS sensor, and integrated pressure transducer, but it is also like Honeywell production subsystem. American GE Druck, Leicester, UK, has a 4-inch wafer production line.
Introduction to MEMS pressure sensor
Is the use of a pressure sensor MEMS technology. MEMS is the abbreviation of MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems). MEMS is the United States, it is called in Japan is known as micro-mechanical, is called micro-system in Europe, it is available in volume production, miniature set of institutions, micro sensors, micro actuators and signal processing and control circuit, until the interface micro devices or systems, communication and power is one. MEMS is developed with the development of the semiconductor integrated circuit microfabrication technology and ultra-precision machining technology, MEMS processing technology has also been widely applied to the field of microfluidic chip with synthetic biology to biochemistry and other laboratory technical processes of chip integration.