Discrete Devices: Highlighting the Importance of Capacity Expansion for Automotive and Lighting Markets

From the perspective of market applications, consumer electronics, computers and network communications are the traditional three major application markets for discrete devices. In recent years, the market for discrete devices in the automotive electronics and electronic lighting industry has also grown rapidly. Although domestic discrete devices have a certain industrial scale, their development still has a big gap compared with the demand of the domestic market. The rapid development of China's discrete device industry must be driven by continuous technological innovation.

Discrete device industry is facing opportunities The rapid development of electronic information industry and complete machine manufacturing industry has led to the development of semiconductor discrete device industry. As an important part of the semiconductor industry, discrete devices have their own characteristics. "Integrated circuits have developed rapidly and have become more and more functional, but semiconductor discrete devices will continue to exist and develop in many areas. Just as humans have aircraft, they still need trains and automobiles." China National Electric Corporation 13 The director of Science and Technology Committee Li Songfa explained to the reporter.

Discrete devices will continue to play an irreplaceable role in traditional applications such as high power, high voltage, and high current, and will play an indispensable role in many emerging applications. Tang Xuemin, general manager of the discrete device division of Hangzhou Silan Microelectronics Co., Ltd., said in an interview: “The steady growth of the whole machine market has led to the continuous expansion of discrete device usage, and with the advancement of integrated circuit technology, many peripherals have been integrated. At the same time, the device also promotes the development of new functional devices, such as the development of CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) process to deep sub-micron, which puts forward higher requirements for ESD (electrostatic discharge) protection devices. The usage of this device has increased sharply.In addition, due to the emphasis on green, environmental protection, and energy-saving power supply products, many power electronic devices have achieved considerable development. For example, high-voltage MOS (metal-oxide-semiconductor) power transistors have been widely used in the power supply field. Applications, IGBTs (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors) have also become very useful in the field of motor variable-frequency drives."

With the breakthrough of device performance, discrete devices have also expanded many new application areas. “For example, with the continuous improvement of high-brightness blue chip technology performance and cost reduction, large-scale full-color LED (light-emitting diode) displays can be used in large quantities. At the same time, LEDs are used in outdoor landscape lighting, LCD (liquid crystal display) backlight, and special Great progress has been made in lighting and other fields," added Tang Xuemin.

Shen Haoping, general manager of Tianjin Zhonghuan Semiconductor Co., Ltd., also expressed similar views to reporters. He said: "Due to pressures from both energy and the environment, power electronics has experienced rapid growth in recent years, especially in emerging industrial countries. Because energy efficiency is relatively low, power electronics will have more room for growth.From a consumer electronics perspective, the bottleneck of almost all portable products is the battery, so power management can also be said to be an eternal topic. Because many discrete device products have the characteristics of small quantities, multiple varieties, and multiple standards, it is difficult for international large manufacturers to monopolize technology. "It can be seen that China's semiconductor discrete device companies are indeed facing good opportunities for development.

Technological innovation should follow the development of market demand after decades of development. China's discrete device manufacturers have completely mastered the production process technology in the middle and low-end ordinary discrete devices, and have formed a certain scale of production, achieving remarkable results; however, in some There is still a large gap between the emerging and market-intensive product areas and the large international manufacturers. Some products with relatively high performance requirements (eg, accuracy requirements, reliability requirements, etc.) cannot meet market demand. In addition, the product quality of local manufacturers has not yet reached the first-class level, it is difficult to be used by the world-class machine manufacturers. Therefore, strengthening research and development, promoting technological innovation, and upgrading product quality are top priorities for China's discrete device manufacturers.

However, Shen Haoping also pointed out that technology is one of the factors of production and it is also a means to meet the demand. Therefore, we cannot talk about technology in isolation from the product market. Chinese semiconductor companies cannot ignore the market while paying attention to technology research and development. demand. In addition to maintaining its leading position in the market competition, Tianjin Zhonghuan will also use newly-built chip production lines to develop and produce power semiconductor devices such as VDMOS (Vertical Double-diffused MOS devices) and IGBTs.

Tang Xuemin believes that technological upgrading is a gradual and systematic project. It cannot be expected to overtake international companies overnight. How to improve product quality and improve product consistency on the basis of current technology level is the work of China's discrete device manufacturers. Focus. Silan Microelectronics began manufacturing the first discrete chip production line in 2003. In 2004, it began to research and develop discrete semiconductor devices. Now it has successively introduced switching diodes, Zener diodes, Schottky tubes, high and low voltage VDMOS power transistors, and transients. Voltage suppression diodes (TVS), ESD protection tubes, and fast recovery diodes have gradually grown to become the largest and most complete supplier of discrete components in China. At present, Silan Micro has reached the leading domestic level in terms of process development capabilities and quality control capabilities. In particular, high-brightness blue-green LED chips, which began mass production in 2006, have achieved leaps and bounds in 2007.

Packaging Technology Advances Device Quality Packaging technology is also one of the innovations in discrete devices. As chip manufacturing technology continues to make the die area greatly reduced, the challenges faced by the packaging technology will be further highlighted. At the same time, the shrinkage of the die area also imposes higher requirements on the heat dissipation of the device.

For example, the common SMD (Surface Mount Device) package leads mostly to two sides or four sides protruding into a "crab claw" shape and occupy a certain amount of space, while QFN (Quad Flat) package electrode welding site all hidden Contained in the bottom of its quad-flat QFN plastic enclosure, there is no slightest protrusion and withdrawal. Therefore, the geometry of the QFN plastic enclosure also stipulates the encapsulating resin and the electrode tip. Compared with SMD, QFN occupies less assembly space, which can increase the packing density per unit volume of the device and save more space for the PCB board. In response to the new challenges of the device's heat dissipation capabilities, QFN high-density packaging uses common electrodes just below the chip to make heat dissipation more efficient.

The typical chip type 1*5 diode array has a typical volume of 2.9mm x 2.8mm x 1.1mm (5 tubes), and the QFN1*5 diode array developed by Suzhou Solid Electronics Co., Ltd. can reduce the volume to 1.6mm x 1.6mm. 0.75mm (5 tubes), its volume is 21.5% of the former, and there is no outer lead, thus greatly improving installation accuracy and reliability. The device can be used in ultra-large-scale integrated circuits in consumer electronics such as notebook computers, CPU circuits, micro mobile communication circuits (mobile phones, etc.), digital audio and video circuits, communications machines, digital cameras, etc., as an anti-static and input terminal Instantaneous current, voltage diode array chip, is a leadless packaged device. Compared to the general SMD chip 1*5 diode array, this product has made great progress in terms of volume and reliability.