Power electronics market driven by applications
Last year, we saw a year-on-year increase of 8.4% in power electronics products in the main inverter field, including EV/HEV, motor drives and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS). To understand the power electronics market, it is important to realize that unlike other "More than Moore" electronics fields, power electronics is an application-driven market, not a technology-driven one. In recent years, thanks to the advent of the digital age or major trends such as environmental issues, this market has experienced substantial growth.
We can directly link environmental issues with government funds provided by different countries to improve energy efficiency and promote the sale of new power electronic systems. For example, the EV/HEV market segment is mainly technically driven by carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction targets, higher efficiency requirements or less reliance on the petroleum industry. Currently, pure electric vehicles account for slightly more than 5% of EV/HEV sales, and by 2023 they will increase to 21%. Overall, Yole analysts predict that the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of the EV/HEV power electronics market during 2017-2023 will reach an astonishing 20.7%. Subsidies have a huge impact on the renewable energy market.
In 2017, China's solar installed capacity accounted for about 50% of the global total. Because of the substantial reduction in subsidies from the Chinese government, the photovoltaic market is expected to shrink significantly in 2018. Nevertheless, thanks to the decline in installed costs and the increase in installed capacity in other parts of the world such as India, South America or Africa, Yole expects the market to recover in the medium term. On the other hand, in order to expand other existing power electronics markets, it is necessary to focus on the development of some new segments. This is the case for the DC charging or stationary energy storage market. In fact, it is necessary to quickly develop DC charging solutions to achieve fast and efficient charging to follow the growth of the EV/HEV market. Similarly, in order to further develop the photovoltaic and wind energy markets, fixed energy storage systems need to be expanded. This report summarizes the applications driving the growth of the power electronics market and their different trends, as well as the main technological developments for each application.
Which applications are driving the power electronics industry?
The power electronics semiconductor device market grew by 11.7% from 2016 to 2017. In 2017, the total power electronics market was 32.7 billion U.S. dollars, of which power ICs accounted for about half. The power electronics semiconductor market developed vigorously last year, with a year-on-year growth rate of 11.7%, mainly due to the sales growth of IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) devices for EV/HEV and motor driver applications. The demand for computing and storage, as well as the automotive sector, also caused the MOSFET (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) device market to grow by 8.3% in 2017.
Power module packaging trends Yole predicts that in the next five years, the power device market has a promising future, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 4% from 2017 to 2023. This will be mainly driven by the EV/HEV market, which will bring an IGBT market of more than US$1.9 billion and a MOSFET market of nearly US$1.8 billion, including discrete devices and modules. MOSFET market demand will also be driven by network and telecommunications applications. Thanks to the construction of 5G network infrastructure, the MOSFET market for network and telecommunications applications will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.3% from 2017 to 2023.
Therefore, many manufacturers are expanding production capacity to shorten the supply cycle to meet these market demands. For example, Infineon (Infineon) is expanding the capacity of its 300mm wafer fab for use in power electronic devices including IGBTs. Driven by huge domestic demand, China is investing a lot of energy and funds to develop domestic power electronic devices and manufacturing technologies to continuously extend downstream in the supply chain.
2017~2023 IGBT and MOSFET discrete devices and modules market forecast (segmented by power electronics market driving applications)
Technology is still important
Due to the processing requirements of high-power load systems, the power electronics market needs to develop in terms of efficiency and thermal management. Major manufacturers in the market need to increase investment in technology development to reduce device and system costs, weight and size without affecting thermal management or reliability. Optimized solutions at the device, package, module, power stack or inverter level are being applied. Passive components must be improved to take full advantage of the potential of new semiconductor materials, devices, and system designs. Yole sees a strong axis of improvement that depends on device development, whether it is silicon or wide band gap materials (such as SiC or GaN). Therefore, end users can achieve higher system efficiency, higher frequency, and higher power density by using more compact systems, or even integrating them in a single chip. However, even if SiC can penetrate into a variety of different applications, silicon solutions will still be further developed and optimized for high-efficiency systems. As an example, we have seen Infineon’s new generation of IGBTs launched last year.
Different assembly schemes In this report, Yole's analysts summarized different technical improvements and trends of full inverter components. Including challenging new materials SiC and GaN, these materials still need to maximize production capacity. This report shows the correlation between technological progress and application requirements, such as the power module innovation required by EV/HEV.
Improvement trends of different system components
Household Electrical Appliances
gree , https://www.greegroups.com