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 he total market for power semiconductors based on wide-band-gap materials, such as silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN), is forecast to pass the $1 billion mark in the next five years. Energized by demand from hybrid and electric vehicles, power supplies, and photovoltaic (PV) inverters, global revenue from SiC and GaN power semiconductors is projected to rise to $3.7 billion in 2025, up from just $210 million in 2015, according to IHS Inc., the leading global source of critical information and insight. Revenue is projected to grow with a double-digit annual growth for the next decade.
All AC-DC power supplies rated at 75 watts (W) and above, and power supplies used in lighting applications rated at 25W and above, are required to include power factor correction (PFC), according to the latest IHS SiC & GaN Power Semiconductors Report. SiC devices, starting with SiC Schottky diodes, have generally only been used in the power factor correction circuit for AC-DC power supplies. The use of SiC Schottky barrier diodes in power supplies, particularly in the power factor correction (PFC) stage of AC-DC power supplies, has been increasing rapidly. The main benefits of using SiC diodes is that faster switching can be achieved, resulting in lower power conversion losses and increased power density.
In contrast to SiC, GaN power semiconductors may offer a viable competitor to silicon diodes and transistors across a full range of high and low voltages; and they could be used in all areas of power-supply design. Although GaN devices could potentially be used in more power supplies eventually, they will not account for the majority of SiC and GaN revenue in the power supply application, over the next 10 years. In fact, revenue from GaN sales comprise less than a third of total revenue in 2025.
Most single-phase electricity mains power supplies in consumer and office equipment typically use 600V–650V devices, making them an ideal target for GaN power transistors. However, apart from telecommunications and server supplies with special requirements, these power supplies will most likely continue to rely on Si semiconductors. Industrial three-phase mains power supplies requiring 1200V-rated devices are better suited to SiC technology.
Since IHS began studying the SiC and GaN power market in 2009, GaN Schottky diode development has almost completely stopped, because GaN diodes do not offer very compelling benefits over Si Schottky diodes below 600V. It has proved too costly to develop GaN diodes to the point where they could be made price competitive with silicon diodes. Furthermore, SiC Schottky diodes are considered to have adequate performance and a competitive pricing roadmap. The first GaN Schottky diodes are not expected to be commercially available before 2020, at the earliest.
The forecast shown in the figure below summarizes specific power supply applications: computing, telecommunication, consumer devices, and all other power supplies. For the sake of consistency, device prices and their declines are assumed to be the same for each power supply application.
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Computing Power Supplies
Power supplies used in computing include a mix of commodity and non-commodity AC-DC power supplies and DC-DC converters used in computing and server applications. Examples of non-commodity AC-DC power supplies in this sector include enterprise and high-end servers, and computer storage. Commodity AC-DC power supplies include those for computing (i.e., all desktop PCs, low-end servers, notebooks, tablet PCs, and the chargers or power adapters used with them) and office equipment (i.e., any other computer and office equipment, including monitors, printers, copiers, DSL modems, LAN hardware, hardware firewalls, cordless phones, IP phones, and fax machines). Among this list of products, over 99 percent of non-commodity AC-DC power supplies employ power factor correction (PFC), compared to less than 1 percent of commodity AC-DC power supplies.
An average of over 15 percent of all computing power supplies contained PFC circuitry in 2015, but this proportion is expected to decline – falling to less than 7 percent in 2025. As equipment power efficiency improves over time, shipments of commodity power supplies for computing applications without PFC circuits are expected to grow faster than non-commodity power supplies with PFC circuitry.
GaN transistors will not be generally used in the commodity AC-DC power supplies in desktop PCs, low-end servers, notebook PCs and power adapters. They will be used only in the types of high-end computing equipment that use non-commodity AC-DC power supplies requiring PFC.
Computing and server power supplies will be the most valuable sector for wide bandgap semiconductors, because the efficiency benefits will provide the best energy cost savings in this application sector.
Telecommunication Power Supplies
Power supplies used for telecommunication applications are non-commodity AC-DC power supplies and DC-DC converters used for the telecommunications application sector. This sector includes the following areas: access (infrastructure in the last one to three kilometers from the end-user), backbone (the underlying network communications conduit, including central offices and infrastructure), networking equipment (including service-provider routers, edge routers, core routers, high-end enterprise routers and network switches), mobile phone infrastructure (including all wireless network base stations), and other telecommunication applications (any fixed communications equipment not included in any other category).
Of these areas, backbone, networking equipment and cellular phone infrastructure employ PFC in most power supplies used. Base-station power supplies usually have 48Vdc outputs and are commonly known in the market as “48V rectifiers.”
Many power supply vendors have already been using SiC Schottky diodes in the PFC circuits for years. There is interest in wider adoption of SiC and GaN devices in the future, as increased switching frequency and efficiency improvements appear possible. However, this increase in adoption is not predicted to happen until reliability is proven and prices fall to roughly double those of the silicon discretes they replace.
In contrast, the adoption of GaN power transistors is only just beginning. GaN power devices offer many of the same advantages over silicon as SiC devices; but they should, in theory, cost less than SiC power devices. However, GaN is a much newer technology, with far less life-test data to prove reliability. The first high-end switch-mode power supplies for telecom and data center applications using GaN transistors will start mass production in 2016.
Consumer Electronics Power Supplies
Power supplies used for consumer electronics are commodity AC-DC power supplies and DC-DC converters used for the consumer electronics and home appliance sectors. Examples include both internal power supplies and power adapters/chargers for gaming consoles, televisions, set-top boxes, CD and DVD players and recorders, digital cameras and camcorders and home appliances (including dishwashers, washing machines and dryers).
Of these products, approximately 13 percent employed power factor correction (PFC) in 2015. Again, this proportion is expected to decline slowly, falling to under 10 percent in 2023, as equipment becomes more power efficient and fewer power supplies exceed the 75W threshold above which PFC is required. Only 1 percent of power supplies in consumer electronics use DC-DC converters.
Although the market for power supplies in consumer electronics is large, manufacturers predominantly use commodity AC-DC power supplies that do not require PFC. Adoption of SiC and GaN power semiconductors will remain very low until device prices fall close to parity with Si MOSFETs and IGBTs.
Other Power Supplies
The remaining market includes a mix of commodity and non-commodity AC-DC power supplies and DC-DC converters used in all other remaining applications. Examples of non-commodity AC-DC power supplies are those used in industrial applications, lighting, medical equipment, and military and aerospace equipment. Examples of commodity AC-DC power supplies are those used for mobile communications (power adapters for cellular phone handsets, including replacement chargers), LED lighting, and any other applications not covered in the preceding categories.
Less than 3 percent of power supplies for products, other than those listed above, used PFC in 2015, but the proportion of “other” power supplies requiring PFC is expected to increase to 6 percent in 2025. Shipments of power supplies for lighting applications, which require PFC above 25W output, are forecast to grow faster than other applications in this group. Fewer than 2 percent of power supplies in “other” applications use DC-DC converters.
Although the market for power supplies for “other” applications is very large, only a small proportion require PFC. Like consumer electronics, adoption of SiC and GaN power semiconductors will remain very low until device prices fall close to parity with Si MOSFETs and IGBTs.
IHS estimates that revenue from SiC and GaN power semiconductors used in power supplies exceeded $100 million in 2015, with SiC Schottky diodes accounting for over 80 percent of the total. Sales of SiC MOSFETs, other SiC transistors (including SiC JFETs and SiC bipolar junction transistors) and SiC power modules will increase as the market adopts wide-band-gap semiconductors, but will only increase the total market by a relatively small amount.
In contrast, the device type with the fastest growing market is projected to be GaN power transistors. Prices for GaN transistors are closing in on Si prices, and are anticipated to match Si alternatives in about 2018 or 2019. They are already low enough to trigger power supply manufacturers to start designing in GaN, leading to revenue taking off in 2018. The wide-band-gap market share of GaN power discretes (transistors and diodes) is forecast to rise from 4 percent in 2015 to 24 percent in 2025. The integration of GaN transistors into GaN modules is forecast to cause a rise in module sales to over $22 million (7 percent market share) by 2025.
SiC Schottky diodes will remain the most valuable wide bandgap semiconductor type overall, but their share of the market will fall below 50 percent by 2025, as the total market passes $450 million.
Power supplies are already an important market for silicon carbide, with the power supplies market for SiC devices set to triple in the next 10 years. The power supplies market for GaN devices is forecast to grow from only 5 percent of the market in 2015, to more than 30 percent in 10 years’ time.
Provided by Richard Eden,
Senior Analyst, Power Semiconductors,
IHS Technology |
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