How many hurdles does GaN have to cross to make a breakthrough in the field of automotive?

Collecting micro-network news, looking back at 2021, the pain point problem of electric vehicles in the "replenishment" link will be upgraded and exploded in the process of further increasing the penetration rate of electric vehicles in 2022, becoming the focus of the industry's high attention and will also be a link that the industry will focus on solving.

In 2022, the development of vehicle piles will accelerate in the direction of high-power high-voltage fast charging. At present, from the perspective of car company dynamics, 7 domestic car companies have laid out or are laying out 800V fast charging technology, and are expected to achieve mass production this year and next year. There is no doubt that 800V high-voltage fast charging will first be promoted on high-end models. However, due to the high cost, the sales volume of the 800V high-end market is unknown and it is still time-tested.

Among the low-end models of the main force, most of them still use the 400V platform. On this platform, under the core appeal of extending the endurance and enhancing the efficiency of the energy replenishment link, GaN power devices can show their fists and feet, which is expected to usher in the inflection point of market applications.

The 400V platform is still the mainstream choice for electric vehicles

Obviously, electric vehicles are the direction of the development of the automotive industry, and they are also the super intelligent terminals of the future. This piece of power device demand, electric vehicles relative to fuel vehicles, the demand for power devices greatly increased, from battery management to motor drive and so on a series of demand has also greatly increased.

Innosec relevant people pointed out that "in the field of automobiles, because it is a long-term field, for the application scenarios of gallium nitride, the main need is vehicle charging, vehicle DC/DC inverter module, and even more cutting-edge wireless charging, etc., gallium nitride will also bring them different solutions." ”

"On-board charging is a relatively large market in the field of electric vehicles. 800 volt batteries, may use 1200 volts or 900V power devices, the current gallium nitride can not do. However, some OBCs on 400V batteries and 12 kilowatts of platforms can be done with gallium nitride, which can significantly improve its charging efficiency and overall capacity. The person added.

Zha Yingjie, vice president of NanoMicro Semiconductor and general manager of China, told Jiwei Network, "It is foreseeable that from the entire global market distribution, Europe is basically 400V, because its own long cruising range is not the most important requirement for it." We predict that by 2030, the vast majority of models in Europe will be dominated by 400V. ”

For the Chinese market, he believes that it is a special case, "because our territory is relatively vast, and the distribution of charging piles is also very extensive." Therefore, we can predict that by 2030, nearly half of the cars in China will probably go from 400V to 800V. In the proportion of the whole world, 400V is still the mainstream, which is a consensus, and now tier1 manufacturers can basically see the platform that will develop in the next few years, and the vehicle charging platform is still based on 400V. ”

From the car to the pile, the advantages of GaN devices in the car

It is not difficult to see from the above content that the 800V power battery system is mainly used for high-end models with long cruising range, but from a global point of view, 400V voltage is still the mainstream. This is also an important target market for GaN at present.

"GaN is widely used in vehicles, such as the protection of low-voltage batteries, the conversion of batteries to the DC end of the system, the protection of high-voltage batteries, and the replacement of silicon-based power devices in the parts of on-board chargers and traction." The aforementioned person pointed out.

The benefits it brings are mainly in several aspects, industry insiders pointed out, "The first is that the charging time is shortened by 60%. The original car charger does not have a corresponding standard, in fact, we now increase the product power to 22 kilowatts, in the same volume of the original 6.6 kilowatts upgraded to 22 kilowatts, so that the entire charging speed increased by 3 times, including the volume and weight of the entire car charger will not affect the weight of the car itself. ”

"Another is the inverter, gaN devices play a very important role in bidirectional circuits, reducing battery loss by 5% and indirectly increasing endurance by 5%. That is to say, in the same volume, he can make the weight of the car charger significantly reduced, as well as improve efficiency, in the process of inverter, the energy consumption on the consumption circuit will be reduced. In general, one is the weight reduction of the car, and the second is that the inverter efficiency will be improved, which can extend our cruising range. ”

With these advantages, GaN's automotive market potential is enormous. "Inside an electric car, the TAM (total potential market space) for gallium nitride chips is more than $250, which is a very remarkable opportunity." Zha Yingjie revealed to Jiwei Network, "Among them, the on-board charger is close to $50, and the DC/DC inverter is about $1.5 billion, while the application of the main drive is close to $200, according to Yole's forecast, we believe that by 2025, the total market opportunity of gallium nitride chips in electric vehicles will exceed $2.5 billion / year." ”

How many hurdles does GaN have to cross to break through?

Although there is great potential in the automotive market, automotive GaN power devices are still plagued by reliability, product model, production mode, and design process. These are the hurdles that GaN devices have to cross when they break through in the automotive market.

In terms of reliability, Zha Yingjie stressed, "The testing of GaN devices is very important, because gallium nitride, as a safety device, is most important for reliability. We have accumulated a lot of reliability data over the past few years, and this piece has our patents protecting some of our tested methods. Our process development risks are self-defined, ensuring that we differ from other vendors on a common platform. ”

In addition, in the field of small adapters, GaN mainly exists in the mode of chips, but in medium and high power, such as electric vehicles, charging piles, etc. in medium and high power applications, GaN should be transformed from chips to modules. In the design of the module, a lot of energy consumption comes from the energy consumption of the package, which is critical to the reliability, stability and cost of the module.

This paradigm shift has also changed the production model of GaN. The aforementioned person pointed out that "from the perspective of the chip itself, most manufacturers are using a waferless working mode." We do the design, hand it over to the foundry for tape-out and lithography, etc., and then do the packaging, we will put some of the most core technologies, including the process, chip design and application parts, in our own hands, this is the traditional fabless-level model. But to do high-power products, especially in the face of China's future development, we have taken a very open approach, including through joint ventures, some strategic cooperation, and in the production of modules, we will also carry out some exploration. ”

In addition to the application mode, production and other levels, the current main products of gallium nitride are 650V devices, measured will be much higher than 650V, and now the current application scenarios are in the 650V file.

The main advantage of silicon carbide is the ultra-high voltage scene, in the high-speed rail, in the car in the ultra-high voltage part of the components are the main market of silicon carbide. Industry insiders pointed out that "the two have a clear definition of the application field, and at present, 1200V is a hurdle." The process of gallium nitride needs to be continuously improved, and the voltage must be raised. ”

Zhu Hangou, senior analyst of Jiwei Consulting, pointed out: "In the automotive grade power device market, many domestic companies have launched corresponding products and have begun to verify on the car, but due to the long verification cycle, it is expected that domestic enterprises will begin to have practical applications in the second half of 2022. In general, the number of enterprises continues to increase, the production line accelerates construction, the supply chain begins to gradually take shape, and the independent and controllable ability of the industrial chain is enhanced. (Proofreading/New)