Abstract
SiC CHALLENGES A $2.6B SILICON DEVICE MARKET
This $2.6B Total Accessible Market is part of the overall $12B Si-based
power discretes business (2008).
Today the largest applications in potential revenue remain Power Supply PFC,
UPS and Motor AC drives. Tomorrow, EV/HEV and inverters for PV installations
will take the lead exhibiting higher CAGR (>15%/year).
However, cost issues slow-down SiC penetration and we only forecast ~4% of the
overall Silicon-based power discretes market to be displaced by SiC in 2019.
Relative market shares of SiC devices split by application
Low-Voltage applications (< 1.2kV) are representing over 99% of today SiC
device sales but we anticipate a huge increase of Medium-Voltage applications
(1.2kV-1.7kV) in the next 2 years. High-Voltage apps will slowly appear from
2013-2014 along with technology improvement and cost reduction.
The entrance of SiC in the promising EV/HEV field has been postponed to 2014
as no switch has reached large volume production yet and car makers are still
improving silicon IGBT technology. Moreover, most of the current or new
entrant EV/HEV manufacturers are working on both GaN and SiC for their nextgen
inverters and no choice has been validated yet.
In the 600-1200 V range, promising GaN technologies might threaten SiC.
However, SiC industry maturity should protect it from frontal competition at
least for the 2 next years. In 2008 the SiC device market reached $23M. 2009
should exhibit something similar as the economic downturn has lead to a quasi
null growth rate this year. 2014 will be the year of expected introduction of
SiC in the automotive industry leading to a $100M market before 2015. In a
decade from now, we anticipate a market size of several hundred million
dollars, dominated by EV/HEV and PV inverter applications.
4” IS IN FULL-PRODUCTION AND 6” IS IN THE STARTING BLOCKS
The total SiC substrate merchant market, including both n-type and S.I. has
reached ~$48M in 2008. It is expected to exceed $300M in a decade.
CREE stays ahead of the competition, but its relative market share on the open
market is shrinking as II-VI, SiCrystal and several new entrants are gaining
momentum in the substrate battle.
We saw the emergence of 2 new entrants in SiC substrates in 2008: N-Crystals
(Russia) and Xiamen Powerway Advanced Material Co., Ltd (China) who are
manufacturing and marketing 2” and 3” SiC substrates 4H & 6H in
both S.I. or n-type doping. Early 2009, another Chinese company, TankeBlue,
announced impressive progress on scale-up production of 3” SiC wafers,
exhibiting micropipe density <10/cm2. This let us think that Chinese
companies are becoming more and more present on the market place proposing
products with state-of-the-art specs and competitive pricing.
We assess that the technical gap between yesterday' s leaders and today' s
challengers is decreasing day by day.
4” wafers are now at full-production at CREE and in final qualification
phase at II-VI, Dow Corning and Nippon Steel. 6” is already announced by
2010. 150 mm wafers will definitely accelerate the cost reduction of SiC
device manufacturing.
IF NO TRANSISTOR, NO BRIGHT FUTURE FOR SiC BUSINESS
Transistor availability is the key condition to envision significant market
growth. According to recent announcements from CREE, Semi- South, TranSiC,
Rohm or Mitsubishi, we remain confident that 2010 will see first commercial
volume offers in MOSFET, J-FET or BJT. Once this condition is met, the SiC
device industry will have to cut the cost to fit with client expectations.
2 parameters will have to be improved:
- SiC substrate $/mm2 cost
- SiC device manufacturing cost and yield, with a particular emphasis on
epitaxy process.
The adoption of the SiC technology will also have to go through the severe
qualification process of the industry (especially in the automotive sector).
There, progress on reliability and robustness must fit the current silicon
standards.
If all conditions are passed, then we can forecast a $800M market size for SiC
devices in a decade from now.
This report presents the detailed major market metrics of the current and
projected SiC device and substrate business, describing the targeted
applications, the key players, the supply-chain, the volumes and related
market size of each segment.
It gives the possible total accessible market for SiC electronics,
highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of this technology over the current
established silicon technologies. It describes the recent progress of device
technologies as well as the new challenges offered by 4” and 6”
substrates.
COMPANY INDEX
ABB, ACREO, AIST, Alstom, AnsaldoBreda, Areva, Bombardier, Bridgestone,
Caracal, CREE, Crysband, Delphi, DENSO, Dow Corning, Dynex, Eaton Powerware,
EnerCon, Epigress, eSiCat, ETC, Eudyna, Fraunhofer ISE, Fuji Electric, GE,
Grundfos, Hitachi, Honda, Hyundai, II-VI, Infineon, Leroy Sommer, Liebert
Emerson, MicroSemi, Mitsubishi, N-Crystals, NeosemiTech, Nippon Steel, Nissan
Motor, Norstel, Northrop Grumman, NovaSiC, OKI Electric, Okmetic, Osram, PAM
Xiamen, Panasonic, Philips, Powerex, Raytheon, RFMD, Rockwell, Rohm, Sanrex,
Schneider Electric, Semikron, Semisouth, SEW, Shindengen, Showa Denko, SiCed,
SiCrystal, Siemens, Skyworks, SMA, STMicroelectronics, Sumitomo SEI,
TankeBlue, Toshiba, Toyota, TranSiC, TriQuint, United Silicon Carbide, Vestas,
Volvo, WideTronix, Yaskawa.
BIO
Dr Philippe ROUSSEL holds a Ph-D in Integrated Electronics Systems from the
National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) in LYON. He joined Yole
Developpement in 1998 and is leading the Compound Semiconductors
techno-economical market analysis department.
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