Yole Développement (Yole), a market research and strategy consulting company, has released its annual bestseller study, Power SiC 2022. Year after year, this technology and market study analyzes the challenges and opportunities of this industry in detail. It is made by Yole’s compound semiconductor team of analysts and provides a detailed overview of the technologies as well as accurate market data. The company also offers a valuable understanding of the value chain, the infrastructure, and the competitive landscape, including an analysis of the leading SiC companies’ strategies.
Poshun CHIU from Yole asserts: “Strongly driven by automotive applications, especially in the EV main inverter, there were multiple newly released EVs and announcements in 2020 and 2021, following Tesla’s adoption of SiC. Moreover, Tesla’s record shipments helped SiC devices to reach the order of US$1 billion in 2021. To fulfill the demand for a long driving range, an 800 V EV is the solution to empower fast DC charging. This is where the 1200 V SiC devices play crucial roles.”
As of 2022, BYD’s Han-EV and Hyundai’s Ioniq-5 have enjoyed good sales by offering fast charging. More OEMs - such as Nio, XPeng, etc. - plan to bring SiC EVs to the market in 2022. Apart from automotive, industrial and energy applications represent the markets with a higher than 20% growth rate in our forecast period.
For example, the deployment of high-power charging infrastructure with SiC modules, and the growing installation of photovoltaics. In this context, the SiC device market is expected to grow beyond US$6 billion by 2027 – from a US$1 billion business in 2021 – in Yole’s latest forecast.
This multi-billion-dollar business is also appealing to players to grow their revenue. Among the top SiC device players, STMicroelectronics and Wolfspeed grew their SiC revenue with a YoY higher than 50% in 2021, aligning with the 57% growth in the global SiC device market. Infineon Technologies delivered a 126% growth by entering the main inverter business with the base of industrial applications. onsemi also entered the game with strong growth in 2021.
As these companies are growing SiC to billion-dollar businesses, competition in the coming years can also be identified in the supply chain integration. The major players have chosen the IDM business, and multiple M&As and partnerships in SiC have reshaped the SiC ecosystem. They aim to secure the wafer supply and enter the device business to sustain their billion-dollar business objectives in the years to come.
The SiC module is the next level for players to compete in, and Yole has identified new products being released for automotive, industrial, and energy applications.
Dr. Peter Friedrich, Vice President SiC at Infineon Technologies, with Poshun Chiu, Technology & Market Analyst specializing in Compound Semiconductor & Emerging Substrates at Yole, and Amine Allouche, Technology & Cost Analyst at System Plus Consulting, will answer questions regarding the latest changes and future of SiC from supply chain integration and capacity expansion to technology innovation during the “SiC evolution: Cars drive a multi-billion dollar business webcast" on April 28, 2022.
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