Source: excerpted from the 2019 third generation semiconductor industry development report issued by the third generation semiconductor industry technology innovation strategic alliance, thank you.
The third generation of semiconductors, represented by silicon carbide (SIC), has the advantages of high frequency, high efficiency, high power, high pressure resistance, high temperature resistance and strong radiation resistance, which meets the major national strategic needs of energy conservation and emission reduction, intelligent manufacturing, information security, and supports the independent innovation, development and transformation of the new generation of mobile communications, new energy vehicles, high-speed rail trains, energy Internet and other industries The upgraded key core materials and electronic components have become the focus of global semiconductor technology and industry competition.
In 2019, the global economic and trade pattern is in the remodeling period, the internal and external environment of China's economy is more complex and severe, but the global third generation semiconductor industry is growing against the trend.
In terms of technical products, product performance and reliability tend to be stable, and customer acceptance is improved. In the field of SiC materials, the commercialization of high-quality 4-inch substrate and 6-inch substrate is also continuing. The introduction of SiC Power modular products is speeding up, and a number of vehicle specification level products deserve attention.
In terms of industry, international enterprises have strengthened their layout in the field of the third generation semiconductor, expanded capacity supply, integrated M & A and enhanced their competitiveness by adjusting their business areas. The world ushered in the upsurge of production expansion, SiC became the hot spot of giant layout, and production capacity increased significantly. Midstream enterprises began to lock up the upstream material supply in advance, and Kerui signed long-term supply agreements with major semiconductor device manufacturers except Roma. Led by automobile enterprises, the third generation semiconductor products gradually enter the mainstream supply chain of various automobile groups. In terms of product supply, the price gap continues to narrow, and the cost performance of SiC and Gan products begins to highlight. The price gap between some products and silicon (SI) products has narrowed to touch the "sweet spot".
In terms of market application, the penetration speed of the third generation semiconductor products has been accelerated, and the application field has been expanding constantly. The market has been led by several driving forces, such as automotive electronics, 5g communication, fast charging power supply and military application.
In general, although the external macro environment is unfavorable in 2019 and the semiconductor industry is in a low period as a whole, the third generation semiconductor industry has achieved a counter trend growth, and both domestic and foreign industries have stepped into the fast lane of development.
Progress of international silicon carbide industry
1. The technology has been improved steadily, and application products have attracted attention. (1) the supply of commercial materials is stable, the performance continues to improve in 2019, the quality of SiC substrate and epitaxy continues to improve, the size continues to expand, the defect density continues to reduce, and the cost performance further obtains downstream recognition. In terms of SiC substrate and Homoepitaxy, commercialization of high-quality 6-inch materials has become popular. Kerui has turned to 6-inch SiC products in an all-round way. The first batch of 8-inch SiC substrate samples are completed, and it is expected to achieve mass production in 2022. (2) A number of new devices have been launched, and application level products have been rapidly supplied. According to mouser data, in 2019, all kinds of SiC and Gan products (including power electronics and microwave RF, excluding LED) sold by manufacturers have reached nearly 1300, an increase of 60% over 2017, and 321 new products have been added in 2019 alone. Figure 1. Data source of SiC and Gan devices and modules sold by mouser in recent three years: Casa research, mouser
1) SiC Power electronic devices and modules in 2019, the introduction of SiC Power modular products is significantly accelerated, and a number of vehicle class products deserve attention. The voltage withstand level and current extremum level of SiC Power electronic devices (including SBD and MOSFET) are basically the same as that in 2018. The highest withstand voltage level of commercial SiC SBD is 3300v, but more than 90% of the products are still concentrated in 650V and 1200V, the working current is concentrated below 60A, and the 1700V and 3300v products are less. The indicators of commercial SiC MOSFET products are basically the same as last year. At present, the highest withstand voltage is 1700V, and the working current is below 65A, mainly including 650V, 900v, 1200V and 1700V. With the development of technology, the products are upgraded. Figure 2 device performance of international commercial SiC SBD
Figure 3 device performance data source of international commercial SiC MOSFET: organized by mouser and Casa research
As the current commercial SiC SBD / MOSFET products have covered most of the application requirements, the number of new products launched in 2019 has decreased compared with 2018. It is worth noting that the four SiC SBDs and MOSFETs launched in 2019 are in line with the vehicle specification level (aec-q101) standard, and are applied to the power electronic device market in new energy vehicles, photovoltaic and other fields. SiC Power Module roll out acceleration. The number of new SiC modules (including all SiC and hybrid SiC modules) launched in 2019 accounts for more than half of the total number of new products, among which the maximum working voltage of all SiC modules is 3300v (Mitsubishi), which also means that the application of SiC devices has entered a new stage. In 2019, the 1700V / 250A all SiC Power Module developed by Roma can play an important role in the application of outdoor power generation system and industrial high-voltage power supply, and its application effect shows that the energy-saving effect and reliability of the system are significantly improved after the new module is adopted, which means that the 1700V SiC module can replace the 1700V Si IGBT module in performance. The company focuses on the introduction of SiC application modules, and the introduction of peripheral devices for SiC circuits. Roma has introduced semiconductor fuses that can independently protect the system, with independent over-current protection function. The development of new energy vehicles puts forward higher requirements for the drive system, such as miniaturization, high efficiency and so on. In 2019, domestic and foreign major parts suppliers or vehicle enterprises are starting to develop or mass produce SiC electric drive system.
2. Auto electronics + 5g speed up, open up market growth space
(1) The market scale of the third generation semiconductor power electronic devices reaches US $580 million. Referring to the data of yole and IHS Markit, the market scale of SiC Power electronic devices in 2019 is about US $507 million, and its main driving force is new energy vehicles. According to the data of China Institute of electronic technology standardization, the global sales volume of power semiconductor discrete devices is about 23.091 billion US dollars. Based on yole's data, the penetration rate of SiC and Gan power electronic devices is about 2.5%. On the whole, the third generation semiconductor is still in the early stage of product introduction despite its rapid progress. Figure 4 data source of SiC vs Gan vs Si penetration in the field of power electronics: yole, 2018yole forecasts that the market size of SiC Power electronic devices will grow to US $1.4 billion in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of nearly 30%. The driving factor is the application of new energy vehicles. Thanks to the improvement of the performance and reliability of SiC MOSFET, SiC MOSFET is expected to be widely used in the main inverter of electric vehicle drive system in 3-5 years. In the next 5 years, the main factor driving the market growth of SiC devices will change from SiC diode to SiC transistor.
2) The new energy vehicle market has attracted much attention, and the scale of the global automobile power semiconductor market has grown steadily. According to the data of China Business Industry Research Institute and Infineon, it is estimated that the automotive semiconductor market will reach 7 billion US dollars in 2020, with a compound growth rate of 6.47%. The electric vehicle market will be the main driving force for the growth of SiC devices, including the power semiconductor part of the car itself and the power semiconductor part of the related charging infrastructure construction. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), by 2030, the number of pure electric vehicles sold in the world will reach 15 times of 2017, increasing to 21.5 million. The value of power semiconductor of new energy vehicles has been greatly improved. The components related to power semiconductor application in the new energy vehicle system architecture include: motor driver, on-board charger (OBC) / off-board charging post, power conversion system (on-board DC / DC). With the development of new energy vehicles, the demand for power semiconductor devices will increase day by day. According to Infineon's statistics, the average value of semiconductor devices used in a traditional fuel vehicle is 355 US dollars, while the value of semiconductor devices used in new energy vehicles is 695 US dollars, almost doubling. Among them, the most significant increase in power devices is from 17 US dollars to 265 US dollars, nearly 15 times. At present, most of the power semiconductors on the market of new energy vehicles are silicon-based devices, such as silicon-based IGBT and silicon-based MOSFET. With the maturity of technology and products, the third generation of semiconductors will gradually replace most of the silicon-based products. The third generation semiconductor power electronic devices accelerate the penetration of electric vehicle market. In 2019, the application of the third generation semiconductor power electronic devices represented by SiC in the field of electric vehicles made rapid progress. In the world, more than 20 automobile manufacturers use SiC devices in OBC. The inverter of Tesla Model 3 adopts all SiC Power Modules produced by Italian semiconductor. All automobile manufacturers plan to use SiC Power electronic devices in the main inverter in the next few years. In terms of charging infrastructure, Delta, together with general motors, etc., developed SiC Power semiconductor devices in the 400KW ultra fast charging system (XFC). In terms of electric drive, Kerui and ZF jointly promote cooperation in the field of electric drive, and both sides reached a strategic cooperation agreement to promote the development of electric drive power assembly using SiC based inverter.
Progress of SiC industry in China
1. The mass production technology is gradually stable and the commercialization process is accelerated
In 2019, China's third-generation semiconductor technology has basically completed the successful leap from small batch R & D to large-scale and commercial production. The technology and performance of each link tend to be stable, and the large-scale production process and product cost performance are gradually recognized by the market. The industry's focus on technology is not only innovation and R & D, but also engineering technology, reliability verification and scale business.
(1) The material has been recognized by the downstream, and the technical index has been steadily improved. 4-inch conductive and semi insulating substrates have been industrialized, 6-inch conductive substrates have been supplied in small quantities, and 8-inch substrates have been developed. At present, the mainstream substrate manufacturers in China have the ability to prepare low microtubule density substrates. The independent 6-inch n-type 4H SiC single crystal substrate material technology reduces the microtubule density to 0.13 / cm2. The 4-inch semi insulated SiC substrate is commercially available in batches, with a surface roughness of 0.082nm and a supply of over 10000 pieces. In the aspect of epitaxy, the current commercial size of SiC Homoepitaxy is 4-6 inches, the base plane dislocation (BPD) is less than or equal to 1cm-2, and the maximum thickness can reach 200 μ M.
(2) In terms of device technology catching up with foreign countries and commercial supply chain opening up SiC devices, the voltage levels covered by domestic and foreign products are basically the same. SiC SBD covers the voltage range of 600v-3300v. The commercial SiC SBD has a maximum withstand voltage of 6.5kv and a working current of 25A at present, realizing mass supply. In terms of SiC MOSFET, it has launched a number of 1200V high-power devices and modules applied to the motor drive of new energy vehicles, and the maximum specification of all SiC power modules is 1200V / 600a. Important breakthroughs have been made in vehicle SiC motor controller, vehicle independent 1200V SiC chip and module, vehicle high temperature and high current SiC MOSFET double-sided silver chip and other technologies. At the same time, a 60kW all SiC DC charger has been developed, with an overall efficiency of 96%, 2% higher than the silicon-based prototype; a 400KW all SiC DC charger prototype has been developed to meet the application of public transport charging station; the mass production of domestic SiC charging equipment has been realized.
2. Acceleration of domestic substitution and rapid growth of market (1) trade friction provides competitive opportunities for domestic market to set sail ahead of international market. China's third-generation semiconductor industry has grown rapidly since 2015. From the perspective of the terminal market, its application will be widely expanded to artificial intelligence and new energy