Smart-Phone Market Further Boosts MEMS Sensor Sales
Accelerometers and Magnetic Sensors See Opportunities
iSuppli Corp.’s recent prediction that up to 11 percent more smart phones could ship this year than in 2008 despite a falling overall mobile handset market is great news for Microelectromechanical System (MEMS) sensor manufacturers. Inertial sensors already are fast becoming a standard feature in these platforms—seen in handsets
including the best-selling Apple iPhone and Research in Motion’s (RIM) Blackberry Storm, Samsung’s Omnia, HTC’s Diamond and in Nokia’s N95 and N96.
What these phones have in common is a large display with touch sensitivity and portrait-landscape orientation determined by a motion sensor, although the motion sensor enables many more functionalities than this. But the motion sensor—a MEMS 3-axis accelerometer—also is finding its way into the lower end of the market too, for example in at least nine phones from Sony Ericsson that currently are shipping.
In fact, the use of accelerometers literally exploded in the second half of 2008. Almost 10 percent of all mobile handsets featured these sensors compared to only 3 percent the year before. More intuitive gaming experiences and basic gesture recognition provided great market differentiation—such as tap modes for muting or accepting calls, shaking to skip tracks in on-board MP3 players and context awareness like power saving or meeting modes.
Five years down the line, accelerometers will reside on the Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) of the vast majority
of smart phones and a significant share of feature-rich phones. The commoditization of 3-axis accelerometers plays
an important role in this penetration, with 8-bit devices supporting relatively simple functionality already costing
less than $1 today.
Tech Push Bears Fruit
The use of accelerometers in mobile phones is not a new phenomenon. However, a number of key product
introductions helped this market finally blossom. The popularity of the iPhone—with its excellent touch display
and accelerometer implementation—played a major role in igniting this market and transformed five years of technology push into market pull. The iPhone, iPod and also the Nintendo Wii have done a lot to help break the magic $1 barrier for a 3-axis motion sensor.
Finding Its Way—Magnetometers
If 2008 was the accelerometer’s watershed year, 2009 will be the year of the magnetic sensor, which will find its way into an increasing number of advanced handsets featuring electronic compasses for GPS navigation. The HTC Google G1 mobile phone leads the way, and could have the same leveraging effect for magnetic sensors as the iPhone did for accelerometers.
Electronic compasses will also combine 3-axis accelerometers to compensate for tilt errors, helping total shipments of motion sensors and magnetometers to exceed 1 billion units in four years.
Indeed, the navigation phone is the next frontier for inertial sensors in phones. GPS use is on the increase, and iSuppli predicts that wireless phones and smart phones will be the biggest platforms for navigation from 2010 onwards, taking over from Portable Navigation Devices (PNDs) and other kinds of navigation products.
This is a great opportunity for magnetic sensors combined with accelerometers. Examples are Google’s G1, the Nokia 6210 and new Nokia 6710 Navigator.
Another important sensor category, the gyroscope, is still one or two years away, however, mainly because a navigation-grade MEMS gyroscope is much too expensive for a mobile-phone application today. These devices complete the motion sensor arsenal and are considered the best solution as part of an inertial measurement unit for LBS and navigation indoors where GPS signals are not available. Finally, pressure sensors that are already used as basic altimeters in some phones could also be included for accurate height information to account for multistory buildings and malls.
iSuppli Corp.’s recent prediction that up to 11 percent more smart phones could ship this year than in 2008 despite a falling overall mobile handset market is great news for Microelectromechanical System (MEMS) sensor manufacturers. Inertial sensors already are fast becoming a standard feature in these platforms—seen in handsets
including the best-selling Apple iPhone and Research in Motion’s (RIM) Blackberry Storm, Samsung’s Omnia, HTC’s Diamond and in Nokia’s N95 and N96.
What these phones have in common is a large display with touch sensitivity and portrait-landscape orientation determined by a motion sensor, although the motion sensor enables many more functionalities than this. But the motion sensor—a MEMS 3-axis accelerometer—also is finding its way into the lower end of the market too, for example in at least nine phones from Sony Ericsson that currently are shipping.
In fact, the use of accelerometers literally exploded in the second half of 2008. Almost 10 percent of all mobile handsets featured these sensors compared to only 3 percent the year before. More intuitive gaming experiences and basic gesture recognition provided great market differentiation—such as tap modes for muting or accepting calls, shaking to skip tracks in on-board MP3 players and context awareness like power saving or meeting modes.
Five years down the line, accelerometers will reside on the Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) of the vast majority
of smart phones and a significant share of feature-rich phones. The commoditization of 3-axis accelerometers plays
an important role in this penetration, with 8-bit devices supporting relatively simple functionality already costing
less than $1 today.
Tech Push Bears Fruit
The use of accelerometers in mobile phones is not a new phenomenon. However, a number of key product
introductions helped this market finally blossom. The popularity of the iPhone—with its excellent touch display
and accelerometer implementation—played a major role in igniting this market and transformed five years of technology push into market pull. The iPhone, iPod and also the Nintendo Wii have done a lot to help break the magic $1 barrier for a 3-axis motion sensor.
Finding Its Way—Magnetometers
If 2008 was the accelerometer’s watershed year, 2009 will be the year of the magnetic sensor, which will find its way into an increasing number of advanced handsets featuring electronic compasses for GPS navigation. The HTC Google G1 mobile phone leads the way, and could have the same leveraging effect for magnetic sensors as the iPhone did for accelerometers.
Electronic compasses will also combine 3-axis accelerometers to compensate for tilt errors, helping total shipments of motion sensors and magnetometers to exceed 1 billion units in four years.
Indeed, the navigation phone is the next frontier for inertial sensors in phones. GPS use is on the increase, and iSuppli predicts that wireless phones and smart phones will be the biggest platforms for navigation from 2010 onwards, taking over from Portable Navigation Devices (PNDs) and other kinds of navigation products.
This is a great opportunity for magnetic sensors combined with accelerometers. Examples are Google’s G1, the Nokia 6210 and new Nokia 6710 Navigator.
Another important sensor category, the gyroscope, is still one or two years away, however, mainly because a navigation-grade MEMS gyroscope is much too expensive for a mobile-phone application today. These devices complete the motion sensor arsenal and are considered the best solution as part of an inertial measurement unit for LBS and navigation indoors where GPS signals are not available. Finally, pressure sensors that are already used as basic altimeters in some phones could also be included for accurate height information to account for multistory buildings and malls.
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