Source: Content by Semiconductor Industry Watch (ID: icbank) original, author: Du Qin, thank you.
Recently, the news that Great Wall Motors has invested in SiC substrate company Tongguang shares has received widespread attention from the industry. This move not only shows that the automobile factory is attaching importance to the third-generation semiconductors such as SiC with real money and silver, but also shows the development of domestic SiC in the field, and gradually obtains any and affirmation from the automobile manufacturer.
In the SiC field, it is normal to bind production capacity between upstream and downstream, but in the future, the investment of downstream enterprises in the upstream SiC industry is also another good way to win SiC production capacity. With the increase of the size of the siC, the technical difficulty is also increasing, which is bound to consume a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources, which will be a win-win strategy. To make matters larger, this move will also contribute to the independent development of the domestic SiC industry.
A number of car manufacturers invested in SiC enterprises, and local companies became "fragrant food"
The continuous development of new energy vehicles makes its requirements for upstream supporting devices gradually improved, SiC as one of the semiconductor materials for making high-temperature, high-frequency, high-power, high-voltage devices, its performance advantages are gradually highlighted, which can improve the efficiency of new energy vehicles and save power semiconductor volume, so it becomes an ideal choice for achieving the best performance of new energy vehicles.
In chip design, wafer manufacturing, packaging and testing, Chinese medicine involves electromagnetics, thermals, mechanics, physics and many other disciplines, and has high requirements for product reliability, consistency, safety, stability and long-term effectiveness, and the overall research and development cycle is long. If the automobile factory can maintain close contact with the upstream SiC enterprises, it will be able to form a good feedback mechanism in the wafer production, chip design and packaging and testing links, which will help accelerate the overall product research and development progress.
In this regard, more and more automobile factories have begun to explore upstream SiC, some of them have taken their own research, and some have invested in SiC enterprises. We have observed that in addition to Great Wall Motors, there are many car companies that are investing in third-generation semiconductor companies related to SiC, and domestic SiC companies have gradually become fragrant.
On December 29, 2021, Great Wall Motors, as the lead investor, invested in Hebei Tongguang And officially entered the core industry of third-generation semiconductors. Relying on the Institute of Semiconductors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hebei Tongguang Co., Ltd. specializes in the research and development, preparation and sales of SiC single crystal, which is the largest scale in Hebei Province and the first high-tech enterprise in China to achieve mass production of the third generation of semiconductor material SiC single crystal substrate. This investment will promote the development and construction of The SiC industry of Tongguang Co., Ltd. It is reported that in September this year, Tongguang's "annual output of 100,000 SiC single crystal substrate project" has been put into operation. In the future, Tongguang co., Ltd. also plans to build a growth base and processing base for 2,000 SiC crystal growth furnaces, and the annual production capacity of SiC single crystal substrates will reach 600,000 pieces.
On November 30, 2021, SAIC Motor and its market-oriented private equity investment platform Shangyi Capital jointly invested 500 million yuan to complete the A-round investment in Jita Semiconductor, a leading domestic manufacturer of automotive grade chips and SiC power devices. It will greatly help Jita Semiconductor to give full play to its own automotive-grade chip manufacturing advantages, and increase the research and development of manufacturing processes such as automotive-grade power management chips, IGBT and SiC power devices. Jita Semiconductor is a characteristic process integrated circuit chip manufacturing enterprises, focusing on analog circuits, power devices required for the characteristics of production process research and development and manufacturing, the production of BCD, IGBT/FRD, SGT/MOSFET, TVS, SiC devices and other chips widely serve the automotive electronics, industrial control, power management, intelligent terminals, and even rail transit, smart grid and other high-end application markets.
Beijing Anpeng Xingyuan New Energy Industry Investment Center (Limited Partnership), invested in Beijing Anpeng Xingyuan New Energy Industry Investment Center (Limited Partnership), a SiC semiconductor company, also invested in SiC semiconductor company Shanghai Zhanxin Electronic Technology. Junxin Electronics mainly provides Power Conversion Solutions with SiC power devices, SiC driver chips, and SiC modules as the core, and Junzen Electronics has started the product research and development of 6-inch SiC MOSFET since its inception, and has mastered the 6-inch SiC MOSFET and SBD process, as well as the SiC MOSFET driver chip. Junxin Electronics completed wafer fabrication, chip packaging, module packaging, performance testing and reliability testing with partners in the domestic first-line semiconductor industry in the virtual IDM mode.
Source: Qi cha cha
In fact, as early as 2018, BAIC BJEV began the development of SiC controllers, and BAIC BJEV is also one of the earliest enterprises in China to carry SiC material controllers and mass production. At the beginning of 2019, the first completely in-house developed Prototype SiC motor controller was developed. The motor controller is the brain that controls the core power of new energy vehicles. At present, BAIC BJEV has become one of the few domestic new energy automobile enterprises in China that has fully mastered the core technology of pure electric vehicle three-electric vehicle and integrated matching control technology.
On May 17, 2021, Geely established Guangdong Core Yueneng Semiconductor Co., Ltd. as a joint venture with Xinju Energy Semiconductor and Xinhe Technology. According to the official micro introduction, the core Yueneng is located in Nansha, Guangzhou, is a chip foundry company for the manufacture and research and development of SiC chips in the field of vehicle regulation and industrial control, with a production line area of 150 acres, and will build an annual output of 240,000 6-inch SiC wafers, becoming the largest vehicle-grade SiC chip manufacturing enterprise in China. In addition, at the "Smart Geely 2025 Conference", Geely Automobile announced that it will mass-produce 800V high-power SiC chips in 2023.
In April 2020, DENSO and Toyota jointly established Mirise to develop three key research areas for next-generation automotive semiconductors: power semiconductors, sensors, and SoCs by combining Toyota's years of expertise focused on mobility with Denso's long history of focusing on in-vehicle expertise. In the field of power semiconductors, next-generation and higher versions of SiC and Ga-based power semiconductors are being developed. According to MIRISE's official website, MIRISE comes from the Japanese word "Mirai" (future) and the English word "Rise". Toyota began mass production of SORA FC buses with Built-in SiC power semiconductors as early as 2018, which were jointly developed by Denso, Toyota, and Toyota's Central R&D Laboratory. The establishment of a joint venture will go further.
On November 8, 2017, Luxiao Technology cooperated with Chery to establish Kerry New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. Smiling parts and components products have been included in Chery's supplier system, if Chery's new energy vehicles to use SiC devices in the future, the cooperation between the two will also have a very natural advantage. Luxiao Technology in the past few years firmly transformed the layout of SiC project, took the lead, the current Luxiao has a 4-inch, 6-inch SiC equipment manufacturing capacity, Luxiao Technology in Hefei SiC project phase I has completed the installation and commissioning of the main equipment, in September can basically achieve 6-inch conductive SiC substrate small batch production.
BYD's sales of new energy vehicles in China in recent years are also in full swing, and it has made a lot of efforts and financial resources in self-developed power semiconductors and ICs. Under the circumstance that the global vehicle-grade semiconductor wafer production capacity continues to be tight, BYD wants to ensure the stable supply of wafers through self-built production lines and capacity expansion, and realize the independent control of power semiconductors. On June 30 this year, BYD issued a listing prospectus to raise funds for the industrialization and upgrading of new power semiconductor chips.
BYD has many years of experience in the stable mass production of IGBT, FRD and other power wafers in the development and manufacturing capabilities of 6-inch silicon-based power semiconductor wafers, based on the accumulation in this regard, BYD intends to build a SiC power semiconductor wafer manufacturing line. The project is mainly implemented in Ningbo Semiconductor, with a total investment of 736.1798 million yuan, a project construction period of 5 years, and the amount of funds to be used is 312.3847 million yuan. After the completion of the project, the company will have a monthly output of 20,000 SiC power semiconductor wafer manufacturing capacity.
Domestic SiC substrate enterprises ushered in the market test stage
Take the SiC substrate field invested by Great Wall Motors this time, in this market, signing a long-term binding capacity is a common practice in the industry. For example, not long ago, General Motors signed a SiC supply agreement with Wolfspeed, and international SiC device and chip companies such as ON Semiconductor, Infineon, and STMicroelectronics have all been bound to Wolfspeed, and it is reported that Wolfspeed has reached a multi-year long-term material agreement totaling more than $1.3 billion in multiple industries. The supply of SiC substrates has not been able to meet the demand, so downstream manufacturers have signed long-term orders to ensure the supply of raw materials. At present, the supply of SiC conductive substrates is mainly concentrated in overseas giants, and companies such as Wolfspeed, ROHM, AND II-VI occupy most of the market share.
Domestic SiC substrates have only begun to break out in recent years, and policies at all levels have been linked, support has been strengthened, and competitors have continued to join the market. Most of the domestic SiC substrate companies are concentrated in 4 inches and 6 inches, and some companies are laying out to 8 inches. In the previous investor Q&A, Luxiao Technology revealed that the current SiC substrate market is mainly 3 major technical genres:
One is the team of Chen Xiaolong of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who began to do SiC in 2003 and then joined Beijing Tianke Heda. Relying on the research results of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the field of SiC for many years, Tianke Heda has broken through key technologies such as defect inhibition, rapid growth and seed crystal treatment. Since 2009, Tianke Heda has been listed by YOLE, an internationally renowned semiconductor consulting organization, as one of the world's leading SiC chip manufacturers.
The second is the team of Professor Xu Xingang of Shandong University, currently in Guangzhou Nansha Wafer Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. Nansha wafers are based on the 6-inch SiC single crystal preparation technology developed by Shandong University. On September 18 this year, the Nansha Wafer Headquarters Base project was capped, and after the project was completed and operated stably, it could produce 200,000 SiC lining substrates and epitaxial sheets per year, and the annual output value would reach 1.35 billion yuan.
The third is the team of Professor Chen Zhanzhan of the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dr. Chen participated in the establishment of the first 2-inch pilot line in China in 2008, and established a 4-inch pilot line in Century Golden Light in 2012, after which Dr. Chen's team joined Luxiao Technology and ran in with the company's original sapphire team to determine the main technical route of SiC substrates, of which cutting and polishing was developed based on the original sapphire technology. It is reported that Dongguan Tianyu has bound the SiC substrate production capacity of Luxiao Technology in the next three years, and Luxiao Technology will reserve no less than 150,000 pieces of production capacity for it from 2022 to 2024.
It should be noted that it is not easy for SiC substrates to obtain long-term orders from downstream customers, the first is to pass customer certification, have stable quality, and customers have relatively high requirements for consistency control; second, they need to have a certain scale and stable supply; third, they have the ability to expand production that matches customer needs.
Most of these domestic SiC substrate companies represented by them have experienced a difficult road from the laboratory to the market, starting from the basic principles of a little bit of exploration, hitting a wall in technology, accumulating in time, the material field is a thick and thin industry, ten years of grinding a sword, slow work can be out of the fine work, and the enterprise is not profitable in the early stage, losing money to engage in research and development is a real thing, and now gradually keep the cloud open to see the moon.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that on June 23, 2021, the domestic Sanan Optoelectronics announced that the first phase of the Hunan Sanan Semiconductor Base project with a total investment of 16 billion yuan was officially lit up and put into operation, which will create the first domestic and the third vertically integrated industrial chain of silicon carbide in the world, providing flexible and diversified cooperation methods from substrate, epitaxy, wafer foundry, bare core particles to discrete devices. It is reported that the production line can produce 30,000 pieces of 6-inch silicon carbide wafers per month.
After years of accumulation, the current technology gap between technology and developed countries is narrowing, and it is fully capable of achieving lane change overtaking in the semiconductor substrate industry.
epilogue
According to Omdia statistics, it is expected that by 2024, the global Market size of SiC power semiconductors will reach $2.66 billion, with an average annual compound growth rate of 24.5%. With the continuous research of SiC-related technologies, SiC manufacturing costs are expected to gradually decline, and downstream applications will continue to expand, providing broad incremental space for the SiC power semiconductor market. In such a market space, a number of domestic SiC enterprises, whether it is SiC substrates, SiC devices and other manufacturers will usher in good development opportunities.
Market practitioners believe that 2021 is the first year of the layout of the domestic SiC industry, this year will be the sample year of major SiC companies, next year the industry will be a major reshuffle, when the real master of core technology, capable companies will stand out in the market. However, in the entire SiC field, whoever wins will be the beneficiary of the domestic SiC industry.