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1. Future Growth Potential of Thin Film
PZT Technology
PrecisionCore is a new generation inkjet technology announced by EPSON in September 2013. The new
inkjet technology is one of its kinds as the MEMS inkjet heads were manufactured using the PZT thin film
technology. The PZT MEMS applications are already in the market and they have proven to be mature
and reliable in use. The use of the same technology for inkjet head player production will soon motivate
other brand players into this niche.
The Market & Technology Analyst at the Yole
, C air Tr ad c c
s: “Thi film
piezoelectric materials are gaining increasingly more importance within the MEMS industry. Although
semiconductor manufacturing companies are historically reluctant to introduce such exotic materials
into their production lines, every major MEMS foundry nowadays is working on the implementation and
qualification of piezoelectric thin film in their MEMS manufacturing processes”.
As a ferroelectric material, the PZT offers three advantages of material properties – pyroelectric effect,
high dielectric constant and piezoelectric effect. Over the last couple of years, the use of dielectric
property has decreased in Ferroelectric memories (FeRAM) and increased in the integrative use of thin
film PZT with Integrated Passive Devices (IPDs). Experts suggest that future PZT applications will have
promising piezoelectric effect. Companies like PoLight and Wavelens are already working on their
autofocus based products using PZT thin film technology and of course, the inception of new MEMS
applications are just the beginning.
However, one major problem with the thin film PZT technology is the devising of a reproducible process
flow on a larger scale. Thin film deposition, etching, test, process monitoring and reliability are some of
its major technological hurdles. Even though many research labs and manufacturers have poured in
money to solve these hurdles, a lot remains to be done to achieve robust production. Hence, players in
the semiconductor industry are focusing on a classic solution – sputtering.
One of the first companies to develop thin film deposition in PZT is ULVAC. The PZT thin film deposition
of ULVAC is based on the PVD process and they do have a robust and reliable PVD technology. In the last
18 months, other known semiconductor companies like Applied Materials started competing in the
same niche marketing by ramping up their technology of PZT films. On the other hand, existing players
like SolMateS and Oerlikon are in the process of improving their Pulsed Laser Deposition technology
with promising results. A case in point is the SolMateS which has managed to compete with larger PVD
equipment manufacturers in a short span of time given their small company size but reputed PLD
technology.
It will not be wrong to suggest that the next five years are going to be really competitive for all the
players in the thin film PZT manufacturing industry. In their 2013-2018 forecast report, the Yole
firm evaluates all the PZT deposition technology providers in terms of their PZT based

2. applications, and also gives a detailed roadmap each of the key players are likely to see in the next five
years.