After attending the conference sessions, we headed to the expo hall to chat with the exhibitors. There are quite a few MEMS related companies at the show which basically fall into four categories -- foundries, device manufacturers such as Freescale and Analog Devices, software makers such as IntelliSense and COMSOL (the maker of FEMLAB) and equipment makers such as Suss.
Tronic's Microsystems, a French MEMS foundry, told us that they recently opened an office in San Francisco. About 50% of their business comes from Europe and it appers that they are looking to expand their presence and reach out to customers in the US.
Silex Microsystems, a Swedish MEMS foundry, was at Sensors for the first time and told us that they currently have about $6 million in annual revenues with about half of that coming from the US. They opened an office in Boston a few weeks ago.
Dalsa Semiconductor, a MEMS foundry from Quebec, indicated that they do about $25 million per year with their MEMS business. Their current customers include venture backed companies Akustica (microphones) and Discera (RF MEMS oscillator).
COMSOL talked about their new MEMS module for FEMLAB.