Whenever SAW technology takes new approaches to applications, EPCOS is available as a competent and reliable partner that can develop and deliver innovative, customized products for the shortest time to market.

Interview with Dr. Werner Faber about market leadership and the edge in SAW filters.

What is EPCOS doing to maintain its world market leadership?

First, we are offering our customers top-quality products at an attractive price-performance ratio. Second, we are pursuing our research and development activities in the closest cooperation with our customers. That's how we spotted the trend toward miniaturization at such an early stage. We have been instrumental in the development of mobile phones with our innovative CSSP and CSSPlus packaging technologies. Today’s discrete filters measure as little as 1.4 × 2 mm and will become even smaller in future! We are currently expanding our production capacity for SAW filters in these tiny packages. Third, we are now established in the Asian growth market and will keep strengthening our position there. Relocation of manufacturing operations is essential to our future business success, because most of our customers now have manufacturing facilities in that region. Our SAW operations in Asia comprise a plant in Singapore, which is the center of global production of multimedia equipment, as well as a plant in Wuxi, in the very midst of the fast-growing Chinese mobile phone market. About 70% of our SAW components are now manufactured in Asia.

Apart from local presence - what other advantages do you offer your customers?

We practise early involvement whenever possible. That means supporting our customers when their new products are still in the planning phase. Codevelopment with customers shortens time to market even further. This relieves handset and WLAN terminal manufacturers of time-consuming design jobs. By optimizing our LTCC modules for specific chipsets, we supply our customers with key front-end circuitry for their products. Several dozen components such as capacitors, varistors and inductors are embedded in the integrated module, which can virtually be regarded as a single component - thanks to multilayer technology. So this module business has made EPCOS a systems supplier.

How will technological development proceed from here?

Film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) technology will be used on a growing scale in the near future. Its major advantage is that it combines the compact dimensions of SAW components with the high power-handling capability of microwave ceramics. FBAR technology opens up the world of CDMA duplexers to us and completes our product portfolio. Conventional microwave ceramic filters and duplexers will soon be relegated to low-loss, low-cost applications and special applications.

What new applications do you envisage for SAW components?

The next generations of mobile phones will have a couple of surprising functions in store that hardly anyone can imagine today. The latest handsets can receive TV programs, for example. Automotive electronics is certainly another fast-growing market from our point of view. Future radio-based automotive systems will need ten or more SAW filters and resonators. Typical applications will include tire pressure monitoring and automatic distance detection as well as keyless entry. Wireless LANs and short-range devices will also unlock considerable potential for data transmission over short distances. Nor should we forget the growing degree of wireless networking in factories and between entire industrial installations, which will open up the industrial electronics market of the future to SAW components.

Asia is currently grabbing the headlines in the public debate on locations and cost cutting. How does Munich rate as an R&D and manufacturing base?

Very highly. There is no doubt about the future of this location. Only here do we find the ideal conditions for our extensive research and development activities, integrated in a European network - both currently and in the long term. Another mainstay of our business is our wholly owned US subsidiary Crystal Technology, Inc. (CTI). It not only supplies us with wafers, but its strategic position in the heart of Silicon Valley gives us the opportunity to enter new markets with forwardlooking technologies, such as optical communications with crystals and subsystems.