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NEWS ANALYSIS


Electric


WITH THE MARKET FOR DISCRETE POWER electronics components set to reach some $15 billion by 2020, manufacturers are racing to deliver SiC and GaN-on-silicon devices with higher current densities and better thermal management than the silicon incumbent. Industrial, electronics and renewables generation applications all demand these smaller, more efficient wide bandgap devices, but right now, by far the most promising market for power electronics makers is electric vehicles.


As Lux Research analyst, Pallavi Madakasira, highlights, efficient power electronics is crucial to reducing battery sizes in electric vehicles, which has massive knock-on benefits for the rest of the automotive system including wiring, packaging and weight.


“Once you start achieving the efficiency savings, you can get away with having a smaller lithium ion battery, and then you only require, for example, a smaller heat sink, so you cut costs and save space and weight,” she says. “[Efficiency savings] have a cascading effect across the entire system that really do add up.”


In her latest research, Madakasira forecasts SiC device manufacturers, such as Infineon, Cree and ST


vehicles: SiC and beyond


As recent forecasts from Lux Research predict SiC devices will crack auto-markets by 2020, have GaN-on-silicon alternatives stalled? Rebecca Pool investigates


Microelectronics, will cash in on the auto- market’s growing performance needs before GaN contemporaries, with SiC diodes displacing silicon devices as early as 2020. “Silicon carbide has a significant lead in the industry primarily due to the sheer number of developers that have invested in the technology,” she says. “Big volume manufacturers, such as Infineon and ST churn out several hundreds of thousands if not millions of diodes.”


In contrast, Madakasira reckons only around two GaN-on-silicon manufacturers are offering products at lower voltage applications. And as she adds: “We know that the GaN developers are not planning to target the automotive industry anytime in the near future, at least not in the next three to five years.”


Instead, these GaN players are already making in-roads to renewable generation and grid storage markets. “Certification [in automotive markets] takes time and GaN players cannot generate revenue overnight here,” says Madakasira, “We will see the first GaN solar inverter from Transphorm hitting the market come 2015. The technology must make its mark and establish credibility here before transitioning to what might seem like a more daunting automotive market.”


18 www.compoundsemiconductor.net October 2014 Copyright Compound Semiconductor


In the meantime, SiC devices looks set to reach plug-in hybrid electric vehicles first, where power savings equate to greater reductions in overall vehicle cost. As Madakasira points out, electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf probably won’t contain a SiC device, as the battery is already small and a more exotic diode or transistor is simply too expensive for this low-end model.


“The cost savings must offset the pricier SiC device,” she explains. “This cannot happen in the Nissan but we do expect plug-in vehicles to be the sweet-spot


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