Bosch Sensortec MEMS sensors
Accelerometers, gyroscopes and barometric pressure sensors a few millimetres across, made in Reutlingen. Bosch says more than half the world's smartphones contain at least one of its MEMS sensors.
- Made by
- Bosch
- From
- Gerlingen, Baden-Württemberg
- Category
- Consumer
- Introduced
- 2005
What it is
Bosch Sensortec, founded in 2005, sells micro-electro-mechanical sensors (MEMS) for consumer electronics: accelerometers, gyroscopes, combined inertial units, magnetometers, and barometric pressure, humidity and gas sensors. They let phones rotate their screens, count steps, stabilise video, guide indoor navigation and detect altitude changes.
How it works
A MEMS sensor combines a tiny mechanical structure etched from silicon with an electronic chip. In an accelerometer, a minute mass suspended on springs shifts when the device moves, changing a capacitance that the chip measures. A barometric sensor uses a thin membrane that flexes with air pressure. Bosch says production takes up to 14 weeks and several hundred process steps in its wafer fab at Reutlingen, and that its newer sensors process data on the sensor itself, using MEMS and chip layers joined by through-silicon vias.
Why it stands out
- Bosch has made MEMS sensors in volume since 1995, first for cars.
- In 2015 Bosch said three in four smartphones used Bosch Sensortec sensors; in 2018 it said more than half of all smartphones contained at least one Bosch MEMS sensor, and that it had made more than ten billion since 1995.
- Bosch Sensortec says it shipped more than one billion sensors in 2024 alone, and cites Yole Group ranking Bosch the global leader in MEMS sensors.
- Bosch says its first consumer accelerometer was 15 times larger in package volume than today's parts.
Where you meet it
Teardowns have found Bosch parts in specific devices: Chipworks identified a Bosch BMA280 accelerometer in the iPhone 6 (2014), and iFixit found a Bosch BMP280 barometric sensor in the Apple Watch Series 2 (2016). Bosch sensors are also in wearables, hearables, drones, game controllers and smart home devices. Suppliers change between models, so a part in one generation says nothing certain about the next.
Sources
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Last reviewed 4 November 2026. Main source: www.bosch-sensortec.com/news/20-years-of-sensing-the-future-. Suggest a correction.