Building on the original investment announced in February 2022, Infineon is taking another decisive step towards building a new market landscape. It plans to build the world's largest 200mm silicon carbide power semiconductor fab in Kulim, Malaysia. The expansion plan is supported by customers, including new design orders of approximately EUR 5 billion in automotive and industrial applications and upfront payments of approximately EUR 1 billion.
Source: Internet
Jochen Hanebeck, CEO of Infineon Technologies, said that the silicon carbide market is accelerating growth, not only in the automotive field, but also in a wide range of industrial applications such as solar energy, energy storage, and high-power electric vehicle charging. The expansion of our Kulim factory will ensure our leadership in this market. With industry-leading scale and unique cost advantages, we are leveraging our competitive advantages, including leading SiC trench technology, a comprehensive packaging portfolio, and deep application understanding. These strengths make us stand out and succeed in the industry.
Wide Bandgap Power Semiconductors
The quality and reliability of power electronics is of particular importance. Minimize cost while maximizing efficiency and power density. To achieve this goal, wide bandgap power semiconductors are key.
High bandgap semiconductors have lower inherent current losses and can withstand higher operating temperatures, enabling higher energy conversion efficiencies and higher reliability. WBG semiconductor materials such as silicon carbide and gallium carbide have better thermal conductivity and higher switching speeds than traditional silicon processes and can realize smaller physical devices.
The forbidden band of a material is the energy required to release an electron from its valence band to the conduction band. The low-carbonization trend will drive strong growth in the power semiconductor market, especially those based on wide bandgap materials.
SiC technology is used in many high-power projects, such as electric drives, motors, inverters, or frequency converters, including powertrain inverters and onboard chargers. Thanks to its excellent thermal performance, higher power density, and lower EMI, SiC technology is favored by high-performance automotive applications.
Source: Infineon
Infineon provides CoolSiC Schottky Diodes series designed for automotive applications suitable for onboard charger applications in hybrid and electric vehicles. CoolSiC adopts a new passivation concept, which has strong resistance to humidity and corrosion. In addition, it is based on 110μm thin wafer technology, which has the best performance in its class.
The Challenge of Wide Bandgap Materials
SiC and GaN have relatively wide forbidden bands of 2.86 and 3.4 eV, respectively. Higher electron mobility allows them to switch faster and release the accumulated charge at the junction more quickly. The development and application of wide bandgap materials bring many advantages but also face design challenges, including applications other than automotive.
One of the challenges with SiC and GaN technology is the need to drive the gate. SiC requires a higher gate-source voltage (V(GS)) to generate negative polarization for the turn-off. GaN, on the other hand, has a much lower threshold voltage (Vth) than silicon, but it requires more precise control. Typically, WBG devices inherently have a higher voltage drop across the body diode than conventional silicon, which requires more precise control of off-time and switching.
To take full advantage of the capabilities of these devices, they must run at higher frequencies. Therefore, it is necessary to carefully control layout parasitics, which makes designing these systems similar to RF design.
In motors for robotics and other industrial applications, size and energy efficiency are the most important design considerations. The pulse width modulation (PWM) frequency can be increased using GaN solutions, while the lower switching losses of GaN help drive permanent magnet motors with very low inductance as well as brushless DC motors. These features also minimize torque ripple and enable precise positioning of servo drives and stepper motors, enabling high-speed motors to meet high-voltage requirements in applications such as drones.
The advantages of power semiconductors based on wide bandgap materials are obvious. As a global leader in power systems, Infineon offers a wide range of semiconductor products such as Infineon MOSFET and IGBT. The plan of expansion is expected to bring SiC's annual revenue to about 7 billion euros, achieving the goal of occupying 30% of the global SiC market share by 2030.
Currently, the silicon carbide market is growing rapidly. According to TrendForce, a global market research organization, it is estimated that as onsemi, Infineon, etc. cooperate with automobiles and energy companies, the output value of the overall silicon carbide power device market will reach US$2.28 billion in 2023, with an annual growth rate of 41.4%. In 2026, the market size of silicon carbide power components is expected to reach US$5.33 billion, and the output value brought by electric vehicles, one of the mainstream applications, will reach US$3.98 billion.