Research
and Markets has announced the addition of the "Micro Fluid Management
Technology" report to their offering.
Objectives of the report
This report describes the market for micro pumps, valves, pressure sensors,
flow sensors and flow controllers.
It provides an overview of the technologies and their numerous applications,
the business opportunities, the main players, as well as the main challenges
and trends. Over the last years, we followed the developments and market of
microfluidic components, and carried out a large number of interviews with the
key players in this field. All this information is structured, analyzed and
complemented by our vision on the market perspectives.
Main Challenges
Beyond ink-jet printers and lab-on-a-chip assays, recent advances and innovations
contribute to the recognition of Microfluidics as a key enabling technology
of the future.
Precise manipulation of microliters down to picoliters of fluid see potential
applications in the Medical, In-Vitro Diagnostic, Chemistry, Energy and industrial
fields.
Up to now, microfluidic products on the market employed passive fluid control
techniques such as the use of capillary forces. The trend towards miniaturization
and the flexible use of systems such as portable medical devices, micro fuel
cells, and even micro chemical reactors imposes strong requirements in terms
of size, weight, accuracy and automation.
Function integration is thus a key requirement, which leads to a growing demand
for micro flow management components such as pumps, valves and sensors.
As medical, diagnostic and consumer handheld applications (micro-fuel cell)
expect low cost disposable solutions, the challenge is to integrate sensors
and valves at the chip manufacturing level. This implies some partnership between
technology providers and microfluidic foundries.
Market
The total market of flow management components is expected to reach 4.2 b$
in 2014, the largest volume being attributed to micro-pressure sensors. Although
MEMS devices represent today a small fraction of this market, this fraction
will significantly increase in the next 5 years, the largest application being
disposable pressure sensors for blood monitoring.
Detailed analysis of the market and technologies for pumps, valves , sensors
and controllers show that although microfluidic devices are entering the marketplace,
no industry standard exists yet , even for the simplest components.
Posted November 19th, 2008