Abstract: With growing anxiety over continuing price erosion in high volume MEMS and the flattening smartphone market, the question on many people's minds is: What will be the next big thing in MEMS? We know from history that academic research has provided a glimpse of new MEMS sensor and actuator technologies poised to make the leap from research to commercial products. Past academic activity on MEMS gyroscopes and oscillators foretold their emergence as viable commercial products.
This presentation will provide an overview of the most noteworthy emerging MEMS sensor and actuator technologies. Our criteria are: commercial relevance, relative maturity, and a viable path towards mass production. Nearly all of the research projects highlighted will need at least three more years of intensive development to bring them to market, but nevertheless, they each hold potential to create exciting new waves of commercial activity.