In January, China Resources Micro announced that it will build the country's largest power semiconductor production base in Chongqing; at the end of last year, Silan Micro announced the construction of two 12-inch specialty process production lines in Xiamen, the main products for MEMS and power semiconductors. Two large projects will push the development of the domestic power semiconductor industry to a climax. As a major branch of the semiconductor industry, power semiconductors play a significant role in the efficient generation, transmission, conversion, storage and control of electrical energy, and are key to achieving energy-saving emission reduction and green manufacturing. How will the power semiconductor market develop in 2018? Can China's power semiconductor industry achieve rapid growth like the IC industry?
Application Market: Automotive, Industrial Dual Wheel Drive
Power semiconductors can be used to control the on and off of the circuit to achieve power rectification, inverter, frequency conversion and so on. Semiconductor devices with a rated current exceeding 1 ampere are generally classified as power semiconductors, which block the voltage from several volts to tens of thousands of volts. Common power semiconductors include MOSFETs, IGBTs, FRDs, VDMOS, and SCR (SCR), high power thyristors (GTO), etc.
From a market perspective, power semiconductors started to pick up from the second half of 2016, and demand continued to grow afterwards. According to IHS Markit's data, in 2017, the global power semiconductor market, including power discrete components and power modules, achieved sales of 38.3 billion U.S. dollars, with an increase rate of approximately 7.5%. In an interview, Yu Dehui, head of Infineon’s Industrial Power Control Division in China, said that he continues to be optimistic about the power semiconductor market in 2018, especially the rapid growth of China’s power semiconductor market.
Power semiconductors are widely used in areas such as automobiles, home appliances, photovoltaics, wind power, and rail transit, and have penetrated into every aspect of people's lives. The industry generally believes that an important reason for boosting demand for power semiconductors is the rapid growth of downstream new energy vehicles. As the largest new energy automobile market in the world, China’s new energy automobile production reached 517,000 in October 2017, an increase of 45.63% year-on-year. It is expected that the annual sales target of 700,000 vehicles is expected to be completed. Automotive electronics is one of the most important application areas of power semiconductor devices. According to industry research data, IGBTs used in new energy vehicles account for about 10% of the total cost of electric vehicles. In 2016, the State Council issued the "13th Five-Year Plan" Notice of the National Strategic Emerging Industries Development Plan: By 2020, new energy vehicles will realize production and sales of more than 2 million units in the current year, and cumulative production and sales will exceed 5 million.
Another market that is expected to show explosive growth is the Industrial Internet of Things. JohnsonKoo, senior vice president of sales for Vishay Semiconductor Asia, said in an interview with reporters earlier that “Made in China 2025†is the Chinese version of Industry 4.0, the first of a three-step “three-step†strategy for China to build a manufacturing power. Ten years of action program. The realization of Industry 4.0 itself requires the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry. These emerging demands will provide semiconductor companies with more market opportunities, including industrial sensors, microcontrollers, electronic tags, and power devices.
New production line: Silan Micro, China Resources invest in succession
Although the growth of China's power semiconductor market is fast, there is still a big gap between the strength of the manufacturers and the international giants, but in recent years, domestic companies are actively chasing them and have achieved certain results. CCID Consulting's report points out that at present, China's leading power equipment companies are accelerating the integration of high-quality overseas resources and accelerating the process of moving toward high-end markets. Therefore, it is expected that the domestic power semiconductor industry in 2018 is expected to set off an upsurge of development just like the IC industry.
At the end of 2017, Silan Micro announced that it will build two 12-inch 65nm-90nm specialty process chip production lines in Haishu District, Xiamen. According to the announcement of Silan Micro, the first production line has a total investment of 7 billion yuan, a process line width of 90nm, and a production capacity of 80,000 pieces per month; it is implemented in two phases, with a total investment of 5 billion yuan in one phase. The company contributes in currency 3 Billion, the monthly production capacity is 40,000 pieces. The initial estimate of the second production line has a total investment of 10 billion yuan and a process line width of 65-90 nm. The main products of these two production lines are MEMS and power devices. On January 8, 2018, CR Micro signed contracts with Chongqing City Economic and Information Technology Commission and Chongqing Xiyong Microelectronics Industrial Park Development Co., Ltd. to establish a national power semiconductor research and development center and build the largest power semiconductor manufacturing center in Chongqing. At the same time, it improved the upstream and downstream industrial chains, formed a complete industrial chain from raw material manufacturing, IC design, and packaging testing, and promoted the upgrading of local integrated circuit industrial bases.
More importantly, after years of nurturing and development, the domestic power semiconductor industry chain has made great progress. Xiao Xiangfeng, secretary general of the Electrical and Electronics Branch of the China Electrical Equipment Industry Association, said that in the past five years, China's power electronic device industry chain has made progress in many areas, including electronic materials, IGBT high-resistance regions, single crystals, and IGBTs. Ceramic structure for gantry, IGBT special solder, Aluminum nitride DBC copper clad plate for IGBT, Aluminum silicon carbide substrate for IGBT, 6 inch silicon carbide wafer and epitaxy, 6 inch silicon carbide, GaN epitaxial with 8 inch SiC substrate, 6 Inch sapphire substrates such as GaN epitaxy. The mature development of these fields has laid a solid foundation for the future growth of China's power semiconductor industry.
New Materials: Rapid Growth of SiC Leading GaN Traction Power Devices
The development of the semiconductor industry has gone through three stages: The first generation of semiconductor materials is represented by silicon (Si), the second generation of semiconductor materials, gallium arsenide (GaAs), has also been widely used, while the third generation of semiconductor materials is GaN ( Wide gaps such as GaN, silicon carbide (SiC), and zinc oxide (ZnO) are representative. The outstanding advantages of the third-generation semiconductor materials are in terms of thermal conductivity, radiation resistance, breakdown electric field, and electron saturation rate, and are therefore more suitable for high-temperature, high-frequency, and radiation-resistant applications.
The SiC material-based power semiconductor technology is relatively mature. The market was formally formed in 2016, and the market size is about 210-240 million US dollars. As the earliest domestic SiC single-crystal substrate high-tech enterprise Tianke Heda Co., Ltd., which was established at the earliest time, has developed rapidly, and has been listed as the main international SiC single crystal substrate manufacturer by YOLE Corporation for eight consecutive years. Yole predicts that by 2021 it will rise to 550 million U.S. dollars, and the compound annual growth rate is expected to reach 19%. Gallium nitride devices are relatively lagging behind.
However, the technologies for power GaN products have also matured since 2017, and it is expected that 2018 will be a more growth year for power GaN. Pan Dawei told reporters that Infineon will launch a series of power GaN products that can increase the frequency of power conversion. The density of power is very high, and it can achieve 10 to 100 times improvement in silicon. Yole's report also confirmed this: In 2016, global power gallium nitride had a market of approximately $14 million. This is relative to the total size of 300 billion U.S. silicon power semiconductor market, of course, it seems very insignificant. However, with its high performance and high frequency solution applicability, power GaN technology is expected to show significant market potential in the short term.
The Chinese power GaN technology also has a rapid development. In November 2017, Inoxec's 8-inch silicon-nitride production line was put into operation and became the first 8-inch silicon-based gallium nitride production line to achieve mass production in China. China Resources Micro Planning and Construction's compound semiconductor project judges that the production line is mainly a GaN process. The project will be implemented in two phases. One of the projects will invest 2 billion yuan, and the second phase will invest 3 billion yuan.
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Henan Yongrong Power Technology Co., Ltd , https://www.hnyongrongglobal.com