Policy Support VS Industry Maturity Improvement

At the beginning of 2014, the United States announced the establishment of the "National Manufacturing Innovation Center for Next-Generation Power Electronics Technology". fast emerging markets, and created a large number of high-income jobs in the United States.

Japan has established the "Next Generation Power Semiconductor Packaging Technology Development Alliance" led by Osaka University, in collaboration with 18 well-known companies, universities and companies engaged in the development and industrialization of SiC and GaN materials, devices and application technologies, including ROHM, Mitsubishi Electric, and Panasonic. Research center.

Europe has launched the industry-university-research project "LAST POWER", led by STMicroelectronics, in collaboration with private companies, universities and public research centers from six European countries, including Italy and Germany, to jointly tackle key technologies of SiC and GaN.

my country's "Made in China 2025" plan clearly proposes to vigorously develop the third-generation semiconductor industry. In May 2015, China established the third-generation semiconductor material and application joint innovation base to seize the new strategic highland of the third-generation semiconductor; the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission led the establishment of the third-generation semiconductor industry technology innovation strategic alliance (CASA). ), which is of great significance to promoting the research and development of third-generation semiconductor materials and devices in my country and the development of related industries.

2017-2019 National third-generation semiconductor related policies

The bottleneck of industry development currently lies in the high cost of SIC substrates: the current cost of SIC is 4-5 times that of Si, and it is expected that the price will gradually drop to about 2 times that of Si in the next 3-5 years. The growth rate of the SIC industry depends on the SIC industry. The speed of chain maturity is currently relatively high, and the product parameters and quality of SIC devices have not been sufficiently verified.

The product stability of SIC MOS requires time to verify: According to experts at Infineon’s 2020 Power Semiconductor Application Conference, the time for SiC MOSFETs to actually land is still very short, and they have just started commercial use in the automotive field (Model 3 is the first to use SIC MOS Some technical indicators such as short-circuit withstand time do not provide enough verification. It takes a long time for SIC MOS to verify its own stability and life in the fields of automotive and industrial control.

According to Yole's forecast, the penetration rates of SIC and GaN power electronic devices (note the application of GaN in power electronics, excluding high-frequency radio frequency devices) will be 3.75% and 1% respectively in the overall power device penetration rate in 2023; the driving factor is new energy New energy power generation and fast charging for automobiles.

At present, the SIC industry chain at home and abroad is becoming more and more mature, the cost continues to decline, and the downstream acceptance has also begun to increase. At present, the entire industry chain is on the eve of the industry outbreak.

SiC vs GaN vs Si penetration in power electronics

SiC Industry Chain Summary

The SIC industry chain is divided into three major links: upstream SIC wafers and epitaxy → manufacturing of intermediate power devices (including three small links of classic IC design → manufacturing → packaging) → downstream industrial control, new energy vehicles, photovoltaic wind power and other applications.

At present, upstream wafers are basically monopolized by American manufacturers such as CREE and II-VI in the United States; domestically, SiC wafer suppliers Shandong Tianyue and Tianke Heda have been able to supply 2-inch to 6-inch single crystal substrates, and their revenue has reached SiC epitaxial wafers: Xiamen Hantiancheng and Dongguan Tianyu can produce 2-inch to 6-inch SiC epitaxial wafers.

Foreign SIC power device players:

Traditional power device manufacturers include Infineon, STMicroelectronics, Mitsubishi Electric, Fuji Electric; CREE involved in SIC devices with SIC materials;

Domestic SIC power device players:

Tyco Tianrun, CLP 55, Basic Semiconductor, Sanan Integrated, China Resources Micro, etc.

SIC wafers, epitaxy and equipment: foreign CREE and II-VI account for more than 70% of SIC wafers, domestic Shandong Tianyue and Tianke Heda have begun to take shape; Roshow announced in November 2019 that Roshow will Customized about 200 silicon carbide crystal growth furnaces for the silicon carbide industrialization project led by Zhongke Steel Research and Guohong Zhongyu. The total purchase amount of equipment is about 300 million yuan. At the same time, Roshow announced plans to cooperate with Hefei in August 2020. Invest 10 billion yuan to build the third-generation semiconductor industrial park, and cut into the substrate and epitaxy from SIC equipment.

SIC industry chain and major players at home and abroad

2. SIC devices: 20 times growth in 10 years, comprehensive domestic layout

Application: New energy vehicle charging piles and photovoltaics will be the first to adopt

SiC has various advantages mentioned above and is a relatively ideal material for high-voltage/high-power/high-frequency power devices. Therefore, SiC power devices are used in new energy vehicles, charging piles, photovoltaic wind power for new energy power generation, etc. The areas where indicators such as loss and loss are more important have obvious development prospects.

Si-IGBT is used for high frequency and low voltage, SiC MOS is used for high frequency and high voltage, and GaN is used for low voltage power but high frequency. When the low frequency and high voltage are used, the Si IGBT is the best. If the high frequency is slightly high but the voltage is not very high and the power is not very high, the Si MOSFET is the best.

If it is both high frequency and high voltage, SiC MOSFET is the best. The voltage does not need to be very large, the power does not need to be very large, but the frequency needs to be very high, and GaN works best in this case.

Main application areas of SIC devices

Taking the application of SIC MOS in new energy vehicles as an example, according to the calculation provided by Cree: when the power components in the BEV inverter of pure electric vehicles are changed to SIC, the power consumption of the whole vehicle can be reduced by 5%-10%; battery life, or reduce the cost of power batteries.

The various advantages of SIC MOS drive the improvement of the battery life of electric vehicles

At the same time, SIC MOS will also have great potential in the fields of fast charging and charging piles. The fast charging pile converts external alternating current into direct current through IGBT or SIC MOS, and then directly charges the battery of the new energy vehicle. It is also sensitive to the loss and its own occupied volume. Therefore, regardless of cost, SIC MOS is more efficient than IGBT. There is prospect and demand. Since the cost of SIC is currently 4-5 times that of Si, it will be first introduced in fast charging piles with high power specifications.

In the field of photovoltaics, high efficiency, high power density, high reliability and low cost are the future development trends of photovoltaic inverters. Therefore, photovoltaic inverters based on SIC materials with better performance will also be an important application trend in the future.

SiC module product launches in various fields in 2019

The application of SIC Schottky diodes also has advantages over traditional Schottky diodes. Silicon carbide Schottky diodes have ideal reverse recovery characteristics compared to conventional silicon fast recovery diodes (SiFRDs). When the device switches from forward conduction to reverse blocking, there is almost no reverse recovery current, and the reverse recovery time is less than 20ns, so the SiC Schottky diode can work at a higher frequency and has a higher frequency at the same frequency. s efficiency.

Another important feature is that the SiC Schottky diode has a positive temperature coefficient, and the resistance gradually increases as the temperature rises, which makes the SIC Schottky diode very suitable for paralleling and practical, increasing the safety and reliability of the system. In summary, SIC Schottky diodes have the following characteristics:

1) Almost no switching loss.
2) Higher switching frequency.
3) Higher efficiency.
4) Higher working temperature.
5) Positive temperature coefficient, suitable for parallel operation.
6) The switching characteristics are almost independent of temperature.

According to the statistics of CASA, the actual transaction price of SiC SBD in the industry has dropped to less than 1 yuan/A. The bulk purchase price of products with a withstand voltage of 600-650V in the industry is about 0.6 yuan/A, and the products with a withstand voltage of 1200V are sold in bulk in the industry. The purchase price is about 1 yuan/A.

2018-2019 SiC SBD product price comparison unit of different manufacturers (yuan/A)

As shown in the table above, the price of some SIC Schottky diode products has dropped by 20%-35% in 2019. The continuous reduction in the price of SIC diodes and the narrowing of the price gap with Si diodes will further promote the application of SIC diodes.

Threshold: Barriers and Difficulties of SIC Devices

Most of the SIC difficulties are concentrated in the crystal growth and substrate fabrication of SIC wafers, but there are also some difficulties in order to make devices, mainly including:

1. Low epitaxy process efficiency: The gas phase epitaxy of silicon carbide is generally carried out at a high temperature above 1500 °C. Due to the problem of sublimation, the temperature should not be too high, generally not exceeding 1800°C, so the growth rate is low. Liquid phase epitaxy has lower temperatures and higher rates, but lower yields.

2. Production of ohmic contact: Ohmic contact is one of the most important processes in the manufacture of devices. It is still difficult to form a good ohmic contact of silicon carbide in practice.

3. High temperature resistance of supporting materials: The silicon carbide chip itself is resistant to high temperature, but its supporting materials may not be able to withstand temperatures above 600 °C. Therefore, the improvement of the overall working temperature requires continuous innovation in supporting materials.

The excellent performance of SIC has been recognized earlier. The reason why there has been good progress in recent years is mainly because SIC chips and SIC devices have some difficulties compared with traditional power devices, and the production of devices is difficult and costly. Coupled with the high difficulty of manufacturing silicon carbide wafers (which will be mentioned later), the two cycle each other, which has restricted the promotion speed of SIC applications in the past few years to a certain extent. The night before, the inflection point is approaching.

Space & Growth Rate: SIC devices will grow at a compound rate of 40% in the next 5-10 years

IHS expects a compound growth rate of 40% for SIC devices in the next 5-10 years: According to IHSMarkit data, the market size of silicon carbide power devices in 2018 is about 390 million US dollars, driven by the huge demand for new energy vehicles, and photovoltaic wind power and charging piles. Efficiency and power consumption requirements have improved. It is expected that the market size of silicon carbide power devices will exceed 10 billion US dollars by 2027, and the compound growth rate for 9 years from 18 to 27 is close to 40%.

SiC Power Device Market Scale Forecast

Measure the market space of SIC MOS devices from the perspective of penetration rate: (SIC MOS is only one type of SIC device) The downstream of SIC MOS devices and IGBT have a large degree of overlap. Therefore, the driving factors that drive the high growth of IGBT industry space such as vehicle, charging pile, industrial control, Photovoltaic wind power and home appliance markets are also the fields that SIC MOS power devices will be involved in in the future.

According to the rough estimates of our previous series of industry reports, in 2019, the global IGBT will be 5.8 billion US dollars, and China will have 2.2 billion US dollars of space. Driven by vehicle and charging piles and industrial control photovoltaic wind power, it is estimated that in 2025, the global IGBT will be 12 billion US dollars and China's 6 billion US dollars. dollars.

Prediction of penetration time of SiC power devices in electric vehicles

The penetration rate of SIC MOS devices depends on the cost reduction and the maturity of the industry chain. According to the research of Infineon and related domestic companies and the judgment of experts in the industry, the inflection point of SIC MOS penetration of IGBTs may be around 2024.

It is estimated that the global penetration rate will be 25% in 2025, and there will be a $3 billion SIC MOS device market in the world. According to the 20% penetration rate, China will have a SIC MOS space of $1.2 billion in 2025.

That is, without considering SIC SBD and other SIC power devices, only the SIC MOS market that replaces the IGBT part is estimated to be 3 billion US dollars worldwide in 2025, which is more than 7 times growth compared to less than 400 million US dollars in 2019, and the growth rate will be from 2025 to 2030. continue.

Landscape: Competitive Landscape of SIC Devices

At present, the silicon carbide device market is still dominated by foreign traditional power leading companies. The top three global market shares in 2017 are Cree, Rohm and STMicroelectronics. Among them, Cree has cut into SIC devices from SIC upstream materials, which is quite Because of its ability to integrate the industry chain from upstream SIC chips to downstream SIC devices.

SIC device and module market share in 2017

Domestic companies are all in the initial stage or have just entered the SIC field, including traditional power device manufacturers China Resources Micro, Jiejie Microelectronics, and Yangjie Technology, which have entered the SIC field from traditional silicon-based MOSFETs, thyristors, and diodes. IGBT manufacturer Star Semiconductor, BYD Semiconductor, etc., but the current domestic SIC device revenue scale is relatively small (Yangjie Technology recently disclosed that the SIC revenue in the first half of 2020 was about 192,800 yuan).

Among the unlisted companies and units that have done better are some of the ones mentioned in the previous industrial chain summary, including:

Tyco Tianrun: SiC SBDs can be mass-produced, covering 600V/5A~50A, 1200V/5A~50A and 1700V/10A series; and as early as 2015, Tyco Tianrun announced the launch of a high-power silicon carbide Schottky diode products are relatively pure companies engaged in SIC devices.

CLP 55: The domestic unit that realizes the whole industry chain from 4-6 inch silicon carbide epitaxial growth, chip design and manufacturing, and module packaging.

Shenzhen Basic Semiconductor: Founded in 2016, it was founded by a doctoral team from well-known universities at home and abroad, such as Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, and Cambridge University. It focuses on SIC power devices. It is also one of the initiators of Shenzhen's third-generation semiconductor research institute. Its 1200V SiC MOSFET products.

3. SIC chip: high growth and high barriers, domestic production is catching up

growth analysis

As mentioned in the previous analysis, silicon carbide wafers are mainly used to make high-voltage power devices and high-frequency power devices: SIC wafers are mainly divided into two types: conductive SIC wafers are subjected to SIC epitaxy to make high-voltage power devices; semi-insulating wafers SIC wafers undergo GaN epitaxy to produce 5G RF devices (especially PA).

SiC wafer industry chain

Silicon carbide wafers are mainly used for high-power and high-frequency power devices: In 2018, the global market size of gallium nitride radio frequency devices was about 420 million US dollars (about 2.8 billion yuan). With the advancement of 5G communication networks, the gallium nitride radio frequency device market Will expand rapidly, Yole predicts that by 2023, the global RF gallium nitride device market size will reach 1.3 billion US dollars (about 9.1 billion yuan); continue to quote the previous IHS forecast, SIC power devices will be from 450 million US dollars in 2019 to 2019. Nearly $3 billion in 2025.

SIC and GaN power device market size forecast

The market size of the third-generation semiconductor GaN in the high-frequency RF field: According to Yole's data, the GaN RF market size in 2017 was US$400 million, and it will grow to nearly US$1.3 billion in 2023, with a compound growth rate of 22%. Overall downstream application structure