Gan is not as low as fast charging with low power
High power line will be opened soon
How to implement the application
Power conversion efficiency of electric vehicles has become a top priority
Gan is the best blue ocean
Recently, an authoritative person disclosed that China plans to include strong support for the development of the third generation semiconductor industry in the "14th five year plan" being formulated, so as to realize industrial independence and independence in 2021-2025.
In addition to paying attention to it, we should also make clear which applications different materials and technologies are suitable for in a large number of civil fields? Which areas can be tried first?
In recent years, the development of electric vehicles has become an inevitable trend in the world. From 2025 to 2040, some countries will ban the sale of fuel vehicles. Despite aerodynamic design, lighter materials and more efficient batteries, it's not enough to increase range.
How to make electric vehicles achieve the best power conversion efficiency is the key to win the favor of electric vehicles. To achieve this goal, we must rely on advanced power devices, such as silicon carbide (SIC) and gallium nitride (GAN), which are third-generation broadband gap (WBG) semiconductors.
Due to higher performance and higher reliability, automotive applications will be the largest market for broadband gap devices in the future. Some leading car companies have begun to use SiC, and Gan also shows the advantage of catching up by replacing silicon devices. It is predicted that Gan will usher in large-scale adoption after 2020.
Evolution of Gan Market
The analysis shows that the early application of Gan needs high performance and high efficiency, and the market is small; the industrial application progress is slow, but the life cycle is long. In 2019, there will be a growth inflection point in Gan market, and the growth after 2021 will be driven by automobile application.
From invention to business
To be "top class" requires strength
History is always surprisingly similar, and stories are often surprisingly similar.
1955
Rubin Braunstein, an American radio company, discovered the infrared radiation of gallium arsenide (GaAs) and other semiconductor alloys;
1962
The first commercial led in the world was made of germanium in 1965, with a unit price of $45;
1972
There are a small number of LED displays used for clocks and calculators; in the 1980s, surface mounted device (SMT) led appeared; in the 1990s, Shuji Nakamura of Japan made blue LEDs with gallium nitride, and then white LED started a wide range of LED application era.
2005
An LED bulb costs more than 20 yuan. In October 2012, the roadmap for China's phasing out incandescent lamps was released, which will ban the import and sale of incandescent lamps of 15 watts and above from October 1, 2016. Even if it is still available on Taobao, most people will not choose.
The third generation semiconductors are very similar to the LEDs of those years, and so are electric cars. Gan belongs to the family of wide band gap materials. It is a kind of binary compound, which is also called compound semiconductor material. The molecule consists of a gallium atom (iii-group, z = 31) and a nitrogen atom (v-group, z = 7) with wurtzite hexagonal structure.
Atomic structure of GaN
Gan has obvious advantages over silicon in power and efficiency. Taking the electric vehicle with all electronic components as an example, the power conversion from battery to motor driving wheel is a process of converting electrical energy into mechanical energy, and the efficiency of motor itself is very important. Regardless of the battery itself, the efficiency of power conversion is about 92%.
What if there was a technology that could increase efficiency to 98 percent? At this time, the heat loss will be reduced to 2%, that is, 2kW, so that the air cooling system can be used for cooling. This technology is Gan. The switch from silicon to Gan can not only reduce the loss, but also simplify the system design, reduce the size and weight of the whole system, and then extend the driving distance.
This time has come, GaN has completed the evolution from invention to commercial use, and started its mileage as the mainstream power transistor technology.
So, why didn't you adopt Gan technology earlier? Dilder Chowdhury, director of strategic marketing for power Gan technology at Nexperia, said: "it will take a decade or more for a new technology to come out of the lab and apply it to mass production, as is the case with Gan FET."
Gan has been in the laboratory for the past 30 or 40 years, he recalled. Although this III-V direct band gap semiconductor material has been widely used in light-emitting diodes (LEDs) since 1990, it is not easy to enter mainstream power transistor applications. Later it used radio frequency and radio fields, such as 4G and 5g base stations. In the field of power, the feasibility of Gan technology is not high due to the cost. Rather than increasing the cost, people are willing to bear some acceptable power loss until the cost of Gan technology reaches a reasonable price. Now, Gan on Si technology provides a better cost roadmap.
Income growth stages in different areas
Power electron also see "Moore's law"?
Reducing power loss is a big challenge for the whole industry. Some semiconductor manufacturers believe that Gan is the future of power semiconductor. In front of the "Moore's law" of power electrons, Gan provides an effective way to further enhance the power density.
Compared with silicon and SiC, the intrinsic performance advantage of Gan is that it has higher efficiency and lowest power conversion loss in any voltage range, and can work at higher frequency. The relative cost advantage is no exception. Silicon based Gan is cheaper than SiC, and the system cost is lower than silicon. Smaller, lighter, cooler power systems