This week, a piece of news about China's cutting-edge IGBT mass production attracted a lot of attention. On July 7, Zhixin Semiconductor's automotive-grade IGBT modules achieved mass production. This is the first fruitful result of the strategic cooperation between Dongfeng Corporation and CRRC to establish Zhixin Semiconductor Company.

According to reports, the IGBT module put into production this time has good heat dissipation and anti-electromagnetic interference, and can meet the high reliability requirements of automotive-grade products. As a result, Chinese new energy vehicle companies have another option, adding weight to the local automotive power semiconductor supply chain.

Recently, not only Zhixin Semiconductor, but also in the past June and early July, in just over a month, China's local IGBT chips and modules, especially automotive products, appeared invariably, showing a collective outbreak.

In June, Huahong and Star Semiconductor signed a strategic cooperation agreement. Both parties jointly announced that the high-power automotive-grade 12-inch IGBT chip jointly created has achieved mass production, has passed product verification by end-car companies, and has widely entered the power unit market represented by automotive applications.

On June 21, Silan Micro announced that the company plans to invest in the construction of "Automotive-grade and industrial-grade power modules and power integrated device packaging production line construction project phase I" through its holding subsidiary Chengdu Jijia Technology Co., Ltd. The total investment of the project is 758 million yuan. The construction period of this project is 2 years, and the production period is 2 years. After being put into production, IGBT modules will be the main products.

On June 23, Sunking Technology’s first IGBT production line was officially completed and put into operation, and the IGBT production line entered the trial production stage. It is reported that the company's IGBT project plans to build 2 IGBT chip backside process production lines and 5 IGBT module packaging and testing production lines. After completion, the annual production capacity will reach 2 million IGBT module products. Its IGBT product applications will cover the medium and low voltage fields from 600V to 1700V, targeting markets such as electric vehicles, photovoltaic wind power, and industrial frequency conversion.

On July 5, Wingtech Technology announced that it would acquire all the shares of British semiconductor manufacturer Newport Wafer Fab through its Dutch subsidiary Nexperia. Newport Wafer Fab was founded in 1982 and mainly produces high-energy-efficiency power semiconductors for automobiles. Nexperia is an important manufacturer of automotive chips and components. Regarding the acquisition, Zhang Xuezheng, chairman of Wingtech Technology, said that the addition of Newport will effectively enhance Nexperia's capabilities in automotive-grade IGBT, MOSFET, Analog and compound semiconductors.

Whether it is the opening of factories, the start of mass production, or mergers and acquisitions, these manufacturers are focusing on the automotive IGBT product market, reflecting the popularity of the market.

Strong demand for IGBT

In the next few years, the sales growth rate of electric vehicles is expected to exceed 50%. Benefiting from policy support and sales subsidies, it is expected that the compound annual growth rate of global and Chinese new energy electric vehicle sales will reach 32%, which will drive the rapid development of related semiconductor and electronic industry chains. It is no lie that automobiles are one of the troika driving the development of the semiconductor industry (5G, Internet of Things and automotive electronics are considered to be the three major engines that will drive the development of the semiconductor industry in the next wave).

In automotive applications, power semiconductor usage is second only to MCU, and its market share is huge.

Most of the new semiconductor usage in new energy vehicles is power semiconductors. In traditional automobiles, power semiconductors are mainly used in fields such as starting, power generation, and safety, accounting for 20% of the total semiconductors in traditional automobiles. The value of a single vehicle is approximately US$60.

Since new energy vehicles generally use high-voltage circuits, when the battery outputs high voltage, frequent voltage conversion is required. At this time, the consumption of voltage conversion circuits (DC-DC) increases significantly. In addition, a large number of DC-AC inverters, transformers, converters, etc. are also required. These demands for semiconductor devices such as IGBTs, MOSFETs, and diodes have also increased significantly. The above have greatly increased the demand for power devices in automotive electronic systems.

According to McKinsey statistics, the semiconductor cost of pure electric vehicles is US$704, which is double the US$350 of traditional vehicles. Among them, the cost of power devices is as high as US$387, accounting for 55%. Among the new semiconductor costs for pure electric vehicles compared with traditional vehicles, the cost of power devices is approximately US$269, accounting for 76% of the new costs.

The power generation and transmission process of new energy electric vehicles is quite different from that of gasoline engines, requiring frequent voltage conversion and DC-AC conversion. In addition, the high demand for cruising range of pure electric vehicles has made the power management requirements more refined. These demands for power discrete devices such as IGBTs, MOSFETs, and diodes are much higher than those of traditional vehicles. Driven by automotive demand, IGBT will experience explosive growth.

Automotive power modules (the current mainstream is IGBT) determine the key performance of the vehicle electric drive system, and account for more than 40% of the cost of the motor inverter, which is the core component.

IGBT accounts for about one-third of the cost of the motor driver, and the motor driver accounts for about 15~20% of the cost of the entire vehicle. In other words, IGBT accounts for 5~7% of the cost of the entire vehicle.

At the technical level, IGBT chips have gone through a series of iterative processes, including upgrades from PT to NPT and then to FS, which have made the chip thinner, reduced thermal resistance, and improved Tj; the introduction of IEGT, CSTBT, and MPT has continued to reduce Vce and increase power density; through surface metal and passivation layer optimization, it can meet the high reliability requirements of automobiles.

In recent years, IGBTs have been innovating in terms of structure, such as the emergence of RC-IGBTs and designs that integrate FWD and IGBTs; in addition, there are also functional integrations, such as integrated current and temperature sensors.

IGBTs are widely used in automotive motor control systems. Currently, automotive motor control systems require dozens of IGBTs. Taking Tesla as an example, Tesla's rear three-phase AC asynchronous motor uses 28 IGBTs per phase, for a total of 84 IGBTs. Including IGBTs in other parts of the motor, Tesla uses a total of 96 IGBTs (the dual motors plus 36 for the front motor). Calculated at a price of US$4 to US$5 per unit, the value of a dual-motor IGBT is approximately US$650.

Although SiC MOSFET is more advanced than IGBT and has good market development potential (Tesla has already adopted SiC MOSFET, and NIO will also adopt it one after another). However, at present, there are still some problems in SiC power devices, which are specifically reflected in: low yield and high cost; there are many defects at the interface between SiC and SiO2, and the long-term reliability of gate oxide is a problem; SiC MOSFET lacks long-term reliability data.

In addition, the current carrying capacity of SiC devices is low, but the cost is too high. The cost of SiC MOSFET chips of the same level is 8 to 12 times that of silicon-based IGBTs. In terms of power consumption, SiC MOSFET is turned on before the silicon-based IGBT and then turned off after the IGBT. The IGBT can achieve ZVS (zero voltage switching), which can significantly reduce losses.

Overall, the electrical characteristics of IGBT are close to 90% of SiC MOSFET chips, while the cost is 25% of SiC MOSFET. Therefore, SiC and silicon hybrid switch modules will have great market application prospects, but it will take time for pure SiC devices to be popularized in automotive power systems. IGBT is still the main force in the market.

China market is growing

China is one of the most important markets for new energy vehicles, with sales of new energy vehicles in China accounting for more than half of global sales.

Against this market background, major international semiconductor manufacturers have established strategic partnerships with domestic automobile OEMs. For example, in March 2018, SAIC and Infineon established a joint venture - SAIC Infineon Semiconductor Company. It is reported that SAIC Infineon Semiconductor focuses on the IGBT module packaging business, aiming to serve SAIC and other domestic new energy vehicle manufacturers, and plans to achieve an annual production capacity of 1 million sets.

In addition, Wingtech Technology has acquired a controlling stake in Nexperia, which has a profound accumulation in the field of automotive power semiconductor devices. More than 50% of its products are used in the automotive field. According to the plan, Nexperia will gradually expand production in mainland China.

Comparing the competitive landscape of automotive semiconductors and the development history of foreign manufacturers, Chinese domestic manufacturers mainly have two development paths: one is to obtain technology and customer resources through acquisitions in the traditional chip field; the other is to develop power semiconductors for new energy vehicles and smart car chips.

While electrification has brought new demand to the automotive semiconductor market, it has also provided many opportunities for domestic automotive semiconductor manufacturers. Currently, more and more domestic manufacturers are beginning to develop power semiconductors for new energy vehicles. Representative manufacturers include BYD, CRRC, Silan Microelectronics, and the manufacturers mentioned above.

However, China's domestic automotive power semiconductor manufacturers are still relatively weak and have a relatively low market share. It will be difficult to form a real competitive relationship with major international manufacturers in a short period of time and need to continue to grow.

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