According to data from industry research organization Yole Développement (Yole), the output value of the silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductor market will reach $ 1.93 billion by 2024, and the compound annual growth rate of the market between 2018 and 2024 will reach 29%. The automotive market is undoubtedly the most important driving factor, with automotive applications accounting for about 50% of the total market in 2024.
The main market driver is the automotive market, Yole announced in its SiC report. It is estimated that the total automobile market in 2024 will reach about 1 billion US dollars, with a market share of 49%. SiC has been used in OBC, and this application will be widely developed in the next few years. With Tesla's introduction of SiC technology, the market has reached an irreversible point, and discussions about whether other automakers will also adopt it is a hot topic this year. Following Tesla, BYD will also announce SiC inverters.
Recently, the automotive industry has invested more than $ 300 billion in the development of electric vehicles (xEV), which is in sharp contrast to the traditional internal combustion engine automotive market, which is the main market driver for Si power components. Behind the adoption of SiC, Yole's analysts also pointed to packaging issues. According to Yole's report, only STMicroelectronics and Danfoss have the ability to present their expertise, and many challenges remain in the SiC supply chain.
Status and Challenges of Silicon Carbide Development
In terms of silicon carbide, foreign companies are developing rapidly. First on the SiC substrate, mass production of 4 inches and 6 inches, 8 inches are also steadily advancing; came to SiC epitaxy: 6-inch epitaxial wafers have been industrialized, the epitaxial rate can reach 170 μm / h, high thickness epitaxial wafers above 100 μm The defect density is lower than 0.1 cm-2.
In this market, the United States, Europe, Japan, and South Korea also have a large right to speak.
Among them, the United States is the world's largest in the SiC field. It has Cree, II-VI, Dow Corning and other highly competitive companies, and accounts for 70-80% of global SiC output. Europe has complete SiC substrates, epitaxy, devices, Application industry chain, with outstanding semiconductor manufacturers such as Infineon, STMicroelectronics, Sicrystal, Ascatronl, IBS, ABB; come to Japan, they are absolute leaders in equipment and module development, mainly Roma, Mitsubishi Electric , Fuji Electric, Panasonic, Toshiba, Hitachi, etc .; South Korea has SiC powder companies, LG Innotek, crystal companies include POSCO, Sapphire Technology, LG, OCI, and SKC, and epitaxial companies include RIST, POSCO, and LG, but SiC device companies Not much, the main promoter is Samsung.
China is the world's largest producer and exporter of silicon carbide, with a production capacity of 2.2 million tons, accounting for more than 80% of the global silicon carbide production capacity. In 2014, China's total silicon carbide output was about 1.03 million tons, of which black silicon carbide and green silicon carbide output were 670,000 tons and 360,000 tons, respectively. It is estimated that the total output in 2015 will reach 1.2 million tons.
There are about 200 silicon carbide material manufacturers in China, including Yicheng Xinneng (formerly Xinda New Material), Xinjiang Longhai, Lanzhou Heqiao, Ningxia Jinjing, and so on. The annual production capacity of silicon carbide is 210,000 tons.
China's silicon carbide raw materials have excess low-end capacity, and prices have continued to fall, severely squeezing corporate profit margins. However, the high-end silicon carbide production capacity is insufficient, and vigorously developing high value-added silicon carbide wafer products has become an inevitable trend to increase the value space of silicon carbide. Although the production technology of silicon carbide wafers has always been in the hands of Cree in the United States, China has now broken its monopoly, and more than five technology-based companies have achieved commercial production of silicon carbide wafers of some sizes.
At present, China's large-scale production of third-generation semiconductor silicon carbide wafers mainly includes BJTK, SDDY, XMHT, and DGTY; there two companies that can produce silicon carbide devices are BJTK and ZJLX.
No matter from the market reaction or the performance of the company, it seems that SiC devices have really reached the time of its outbreak, but on the whole, it still needs to cross several hurdles. First, the cost of SiC is higher than that of Si. How to improve cost competitiveness is a key condition for SiC to break out.
Technically, SiC also needs to meet several challenges.
Sima Liangliang, the vice president of sales of Hantian Tiancheng Electronic Technology, said in an interview with Taiwanese media CTIMES that because the bottleneck of silicon carbide production has not been resolved and the quality of the raw material crystal pillars is unstable, the overall market cannot be widely popularized. Another development limitation is the application and design of silicon carbide components. Sima Liangliang said that because silicon wafers have been around for a long time, and they have been around for many years, they have very complete tools and technical support, so most chip engineers are only familiar with the chip development of silicon components. The purpose is not very clear.
He even used "Doctors" and "Primary School Students" to compare the current knowledge gap between silicon crystals and silicon carbide. Because of this knowledge gap, the development of silicon carbide components is slower.
"Engineers are not very clear about the performance of silicon carbide components, coupled with the instability of wafer quality, which leads to insufficient yield and reliability of components, which makes the entire industry develop very slowly," said Sima Liangliang.
If these problems can be solved one day, the era of SiC will really come.