The development of SiC and GaN power semiconductor market

The current state of SiC technology and market, and the development trend in the next few years.

The SiC device market is promising. Sales of Schottky barrier diodes have matured and MOSFET shipments are expected to increase significantly over the next three years. According to Yole Développement analysts, SiC is very mature in terms of diodes, and GaN has no challenge at all for SiC MOSFETs with voltages of 1.2kV and above. GaN may compete with SiC MOSFETs in the 650V range, but SiC is more mature. It is expected that SiC sales will grow rapidly, and SiC will gain market share from the silicon power device market, and it is estimated that the compound growth rate will reach 28% in the next few years.

IHS Markit believes that the SiC industry will continue to grow strongly, driven by growth in applications such as hybrid and electric vehicles, power electronics and photovoltaic inverters. SiC power devices mainly include power diodes and transistors (transistors, switching transistors). SiC power devices double the power, temperature,frequency, radiation immunity, efficiency and reliability of power electronics systems, resulting in significant reductions in size, weight and cost. The penetration of the SiC market is also growing, especially in China, where Schottky diodes, MOSFETs, junction-gate field effect transistors (JFETs) and other SiC discrete devices have appeared in mass-produced automotive DC-DC converters, automotive battery chargers.

In some applications, GaN devices or GaN system integrated circuits may become competitors for SiC devices. The first GaN transistor to comply with the automotive AEC-Q101 specification was released by Transphorm in 2017. Moreover, GaN devices fabricated on GaN-on-Si epitaxial wafer have a relatively low cost and are easier to fabricate than any product on SiC wafers. For these reasons, GaN transistors may be the first choice for inverters in the late 2020s, and are superior to the more expensive SiC MOSFETs. GaN system integrated circuits package GaN transistors together with silicon gate driver ICs or monolithic full GaN ICs. Once their performance is optimized for mobile phones and notebook chargers and other high-volume applications, it is likely to be widely available on a wider scale. The current development of commercial GaN power diodes has not really begun because they fail to provide significant benefits relative to Si devices and are too expensive to be feasible. SiC Schottky diodes have been well used for these purposes and have a good pricing roadmap.

In the manufacture field in this line, few players offer both these two materials, but Xiamen Powerway Advanced Material Co., Ltd(PAM-XIAMEN) engage in GaN and SiC materials together, its production line includes SiC substrate and epitaxy, GaN substrate, GaN HEMT epi wafer on silicon/SiC/Sapphire, and GaN based material with MQW for blue or green emission.

IHS Markit expects: By 2020, the combined market for SiC and GaN power semiconductors will be close to $1 billion, driven by demand for hybrid and electric vehicles, power electronics and photovoltaic inverters. Among them, the application of SiC and GaN power semiconductors in the main drive train inverters of hybrid and electric vehicles will lead to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 35% after 2017 and 10 billion US dollars in 2027. By 2020, GaN-on-Si transistors will be priced at the same level as Si MOSFETs and IGBTs, while offering the same superior performance. Once this benchmark is reached, the GaN power market is expected to reach $600 million in 2024 and climb to more than $1.7 billion in 2027.

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