Analog Devices Harnesses a Wii Hit

As it is, ADI's MEMS business now represents a small portion of its overall revenue, with sales totaling $47 million, or 7% of total sales, in the last quarter.

Deutsche Bank analyst Ross Seymore estimates that the consumer portion accounts for about 2% of ADI's $47 million in MEMS sales.

"You have to always keep the perspective of what the percentage of revenue is for a given new product and what the percentage of earnings is. And in both cases, the consumer MEMS is very small," says Seymore.

Deutsche Bank makes a market in ADI securities and owns 1% of more of ADI common stock.

But he notes that MEMS have serious growth potential in the consumer market.

"You're only limited by your own creativity in what these sorts of things [MEMS chips] can be applied into," says Seymore. "The good news is, the sky's the limit on what that could be."

MEMS are essentially mechanical devices built on the same tiny scale and using similar processes and materials as in the manufacture of semiconductors. In many cases, MEMS are used as sensors to measure changes in motion, sound and pressure, with the resulting data shuttled to an electronic device's nearby processors.

The MEMS chip that allows a person to play video games by waving a Nintendo Wii control around in the air is a so-called accelerometer, capable of detecting motion in three axes: up-down, left-right and forward-backwards.