JW Insights believes:
-The Company's leading overseas IGBT manufacturers still occupy the main market in the domestic IGBT field, and with the continuous development of new energy vehicles, the vehicle specification grade IGBT may become the largest downstream market for IGBT.
-The Company's domestic local IGBT manufacturers entered the market late, but the gap with international products is gradually narrowing, among which Star Semiconductor has realized the vehicle specification chip based on the seventh generation of IGBT technology, becoming one of the top ten international IGBT module manufacturers with a rich product category.
-At present, downstream OEMs are focusing on four aspects in selecting IGBT suppliers: quality, delivery, cost, and technology.
- In 2021, the delivery period of IGBT products also continues to be extended, and there is still no relief in Q3, and the delivery time of some IGBT products of Infineon and ON Semiconductor has been extended to 39-52 weeks, which to a certain extent gives domestic IGBT the opportunity to quickly enter the vehicle supply chain, and the strong demand market of IGBT will not be alleviated in the short term.
Different power semiconductors are suitable for different power, frequency range and application field according to the characteristics of the device, IGBT has the advantages of low power MOSFET and BJT drive power and reduced saturation voltage, suitable for 650-6500V medium and high voltage field, widely used in industry, electric vehicles, rail transit, new energy power generation, smart grid, aerospace and other fields. In practical applications, IGBT uses different circuit design and packaging technologies to divide product types into three categories: single tube (discrete device), IGBT module and IPM. Since the size of the IGBT module is relatively standardized, the connection between the chips has also been completed inside the module, so compared with the devices of the same capacity, IGBT has the advantages of small size, light weight, high integration, strong reliability, and stable heat dissipation.
IGBT threshold is high, for a long time high-end product manufacturers are mainly concentrated in Europe, the United States and Japan, mainly by Infineon, Mitsubishi, Fuji Electric and other overseas enterprises monopoly. In 2020, overseas manufacturers contributed more than 80% of the world's production capacity, while the effective wafer production capacity of domestic manufacturers IGBT was about 50,000 to 60,000 pieces/month (equivalent to 8 inches), with a share of less than 20%. However, in 2021, domestic wafer foundries (Huahong Semiconductor, SMIC, XECO Semiconductor, etc.) and IDM manufacturers (Silan Micro, China Resources Micro, BYD Semiconductor, Times Electric, etc.) are willing to expand as a whole.
The increase in downstream demand has effectively promoted the growth of IGBT in the semiconductor field, and new energy vehicles are the largest demand side of China's IGBT downstream, accounting for nearly 31%, so automotive grade IGBT may become the largest downstream market for IGBT. According to the "Energy Saving and New Energy Technology Roadmap 2.0" compiled by the Society of Automotive Engineers of China, by 2025, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in mainland China will reach 20%, and in fact, the statistics of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers show that the overall sales of new energy vehicles in mainland China will be 3.5072 million units in 2021, an increase of 165.10% year-on-year, and the penetration rate will increase significantly from 6.17% in 2020 to 17.42% in 2021, far exceeding the official development planning guidelines. In addition, according to the forecast of the China Automobile Association, the annual sales of mainland vehicles are expected to reach 30 million in 2025 (penetration rate of about 30%), when the sales of new energy vehicles in the mainland are expected to reach 9-10 million, and by 2035, it is estimated to account for more than half.
Among the new energy vehicles, the IGBT module is the core device of the new energy vehicle motor controller, vehicle air conditioner, charging pile and other equipment, compared with the industrial control field, the vehicle grade IGBT has higher requirements for the reliability of chips and modules, and the verification and introduction period is also longer, usually 2-3 years, and some models need up to 5 years of verification period.
Among them, the motor controller system is one of the key costs, accounting for about 15%-20% of the vehicle cost. According to Infineon's annual report, IGBT accounts for about 37% of the cost of electronic control systems for new energy vehicles, and is one of the most core electronic devices in electronic control systems. The better the power performance of new energy vehicles, the greater the number of IGBT components required. In general, the value of the main drive IGBT of the A00-A0 level (motor output power of 20-55kW) is about 650 yuan, the value of the main drive IGBT of the A-class sedan and the compact SUV new energy vehicle (motor output power of 100-250kW) is about 1300 yuan, while the value of the B-class sedan and medium-sized SUV (motor output power of 150-400kW) can reach more than 2275 yuan.
On the other hand, the increase in the number of charging piles in China will also promote the growth of IGBT demand. The IGBT module plays the role of power conversion in the charging pile and is one of the core devices of the charging pile. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, from 2015 to 2020, the number of public charging piles in China continued to grow, from 516,000 units in 2019 to 1.147 million units in 2021, with a compound growth rate of nearly 50%, and JW Insights expects that the ownership of public charging piles will continue to grow explosively in the following years.
Therefore, according to the sales guidelines of electric vehicles of the China Automobile Association, JW Insights calculates that the domestic IGBT market size in 2022 and 2023 can roughly reach 7.1 billion and 9.5 billion, close to a compound growth rate of 35%.
At present, domestic enterprises have begun to embark on the road of independent research and development, and among the downstream applications, medium-voltage IGBT and IGBT modules have the most investment value. Infineon as the global IGBT leading enterprises, the development path of product technology can be better benchmarked by domestic enterprises, at present, Infineon products have been iterated to the seventh generation, Chinese local manufacturers entered the market late, but the gap with international products is gradually narrowing, of which Star Semiconductor has become one of the top ten international IGBT module manufacturers, with a rich product category.
JW Insights believes that at present, downstream vehicle manufacturers mainly focus on four aspects in the criteria for selecting IGBT suppliers: quality, delivery, cost, and technology.
"Quality", at present, there are many domestic enterprises that do IGBT, but there are still very few companies that can really break into enterprises to achieve domestic substitution, and the scale of output is still very small. For the whole vehicle, IGBT considers whether three quality issues are guaranteed: whether the low loss problem caused by the mileage and emission requirements can be effectively solved; the high power density and heat dissipation problem caused by lightweight; and the reliability problem required by the harsh operating environment.
"Delivery", whether it can ensure the normal production of IGBT production capacity scheduled by vehicle manufacturers, and fast delivery is also one of the main audit criteria for terminal manufacturers. At present, domestic IGBT manufacturers, such as BYD Electronics, Times Electric, Silan Micro, China Resources Micro, these IDM manufacturers have strong delivery advantages, and Fabless such as Star Semiconductor, which has a strong delivery ability to bundle deep business with Huahong Semiconductor. Since the end of 2020, the global lack of core problems continues to be prominent, wafer manufacturing capacity is insufficient, the delivery time of IGBT products in 2021 has continued to lengthen, and there has been no relief in Q3, and the delivery time of some IGBT products of Infineon and ON Semiconductor has been extended to 39-52 weeks, which to a certain extent gives domestic IGBTs the opportunity to quickly enter the vehicle supply chain.
"Cost", the vehicle IGBT accounts for almost half of the total power device value, so the vehicle is very important for the cost control of IGBT. Because the automotive module requires a life of more than 200,000 km or longer than 15 years of service life, so Infineon, BYD and other mature IGBT products are more dominant, the current domestic product certification data time is still too short, most terminal OEMs generally do not use domestic IGBT, therefore, domestic IGBT wants to break into the host manufacturers to use the way of price reduction.
"Technology" said that the new generation of IGBT chips and the old generation have their own advantages and disadvantages, although the old generation of product loss and area and other indicators are not necessarily the best, but the stability has been verified for a long time, a considerable number of customers in the new generation of products out of the old generation of chips still use the old generation of chips. At present, the domestic IGBT has achieved the international first-class technical level in the process of design process, but in the manufacturing process, the domestic equipment has just been introduced, and it cannot be used maturely, and there is still a lot of distance compared with the international leading companies.
JW Insights believes that with the migration of global manufacturing to China, China has gradually become the world's largest IGBT market, and the demand for IGBT localization cannot be delayed. Although the current progress of China's IGBT substitution in new energy vehicles is slow, the strong demand for vehicle-grade IGBTs will further promote the domestic substitution process. The problem that the delivery cycle of major international manufacturers continues to lengthen, which to a certain extent also gives domestic IGBT manufacturers a more comfortable development environment, and domestic enterprises will also rush forward and deliver satisfactory answers. (Proofreading/Arden)