How is the application of gallium nitride in automobiles progressing?
In fact, in the field of electric vehicles, gallium nitride has gradually accelerated, hoping to catch up with this wave of new energy dividends. An important turning point in the introduction of gallium nitride is that in 2021, BMW and gansystems signed a comprehensive production capacity agreement for BMW's high-performance automotive standard gallium nitride power semiconductors, with a cooperation amount of US$100 million.
At present, the application of silicon carbide in electric vehicles is in full swing. This year, we can see motor controller modules, including the Viola ET7. BYD E3.0 platform. Xiaopeng G9 has used a motor controller module supported by silicon carbide devices, and the penetration rate of silicon carbide devices in new energy vehicles is also increasing.
Gallium Nitride is also a third-generation semiconductor that is not limited to chargers and RF. In fact, in the field of electric vehicles, gallium nitride has gradually accelerated, hoping to catch up with this wave of new energy dividends. Recently, Anshi Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Wentai Technology, announced that it has reached a cooperation with Kyocera AVXcomponents, a subsidiary of Japan's Kyocera in Austria. The direction of cooperation is mainly gallium nitride automotive power modules.
So how has the application of gallium nitride in automobiles progressed so far? In fact, gallium nitride has been widely used in chargers, that is, in recent years. In automotive applications, large-scale adoption of gallium nitride is still very early. An important turning point in the introduction of gallium nitride is that in 2021, BMW and gansystems signed a comprehensive production capacity agreement for BMW's high-performance automotive standard gallium nitride power semiconductors, with a cooperation amount of US$100 million.
As early as 2020, gansystems also demonstrated an all-gallium nitride car with solar cells, proving the feasibility of gallium nitride in power conversion, and proving that gallium nitride also has great application prospects in automobiles.
For example, the AS1531 on-board charger (OBC) for electric vehicles, using GaN devices, can reduce the size to one-fifth of the original size, the charging efficiency can reach 98%, and the heat dissipation structure can also be reduced.
The significant improvement of Gan devices on DC/DC is that the power density is greatly improved, which can be increased from 1kw/L to 2kw/L.
On the other hand, the current high-end models of electric vehicles are gradually being promoted to high-voltage platforms above 800V, but gallium nitride can continue to improve the efficiency of the original platforms below 800V. In the future, the mid-to-low-end automobile market will have a lot of room for development.
The potential market opportunity for gallium nitride components in electric vehicles is forecast to exceed $250. The total market opportunity for gallium nitride power chips in electric vehicles is expected to exceed $2.5 billion annually by 2025.
In addition, the main problem of current silicon carbide applications is that silicon carbide substrates are difficult to grow, and low yields lead to high costs. GaN power devices can be grown on silicon substrates, that is, GaN-on-silicon devices, mostly using standard CMOS processes, so GaN has certain advantages over SiC in terms of cost, production capacity and supply.
In addition to gansystems, Anshi Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Wentai, also launched an automotive-grade gallium nitride power device last year with a voltage level of 650V and a conductive resistance of 50mΩ. It is understood that Anshi Semiconductor has developed gallium nitride devices with a voltage level of 900V. In the future, there are plans for 1200V products, and it is committed to breaking the situation that gallium nitride products can only be used for medium and low voltage.
In fact, in the past, people thought that gallium nitride was only suitable for medium and low voltage applications of 650V and below, but in fact, the potential of gallium nitride in power devices goes far beyond that. Previously, Jingzhan cooperated with the Power Electronics System Center of Virginia Tech University in the United States to successfully prepare a gallium nitride SBD, which achieved an ultra-high breakdown voltage of more than 10kV, and some indicators were even higher than the SiCSBD of the same specification.
Whether gallium nitride can have a huge impact on silicon carbide's market share in future electric vehicles is unknown, but it is certain that gallium nitride will have a bigger stage.
