BASiC SiC Inside! Basic semiconductor development enters the "fast lane"

Recently, Shenzhen Basic Semiconductor, a leading company in the domestic third-generation semiconductor industry, announced a major news: a new energy vehicle equipped with Basic Semiconductor's silicon carbide MOSFET and silicon carbide Schottky diode has accumulated 120 days of trouble-free driving and a mileage of more than 10,000 kilometers!

Basic Semiconductor is continuously accelerating the research and development and testing of automotive-grade silicon carbide power devices , standing out among domestic third-generation semiconductor companies. It will lead the technological innovation of silicon carbide devices and promote the process of domestic substitution of power devices.

Automotive silicon carbide power devices worth tens of billions of dollars

At present, silicon carbide power devices have been mass-produced and widely used in industrial fields such as photovoltaic inverters and industrial motors. New energy vehicles will be the largest application market for silicon carbide power devices in the future. As the core part of new energy vehicles, electronic control and on-board power supply are the main application carriers of silicon carbide power devices.

Silicon carbide MOSFET has broad application prospects in motor controllers. Tesla's mass-produced Model 3 main inverter uses full silicon carbide power modules as core power devices, and each vehicle is equipped with 24 full silicon carbide power modules. Influenced by Tesla, mainstream OEMs at home and abroad are accelerating the research and development of full silicon carbide inverters. With the continuous improvement of new energy vehicles' requirements for miniaturization and lightweight electric drive, silicon carbide power devices are becoming the new favorite of the new energy vehicle industry with their high frequency and high efficiency, and will lead the technological transformation of the new energy vehicle industry.

Basic semiconductors are positioned in advance, and automotive-grade power devices are about to be launched

Basic Semiconductor was founded by a team of doctoral students from well-known domestic and foreign universities such as Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Cambridge University, and the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. It focuses on the research and development and industrialization of silicon carbide power devices. Its silicon carbide device industry chain covers epitaxial preparation, chip design, manufacturing process, packaging and testing, and drive applications.

In 2018, Basic Semiconductor took the lead in releasing the first 1200V SiC MOSFET that passed industrial-grade reliability testing. Its channel electron mobility reached 14cm2/V·S, gate oxide breakdown field strength was close to 8.8MV/cm, Vth>2.5V at Tj=150℃, and its short-circuit withstand time exceeded 6μs at 25℃. After nearly a year of market testing and verification, Basic Semiconductor's SiC MOSFET has successfully entered the small-scale production stage and has been tried out in industries such as photovoltaic inverters, vehicle power supplies, APFs, and high-power charging pile power supplies.

At the same time, Basic Semiconductor's independently developed 1200V/200A automotive-grade full silicon carbide power module has completed the first batch of engineering samples and will conduct joint tests with domestic first-tier OEMs to promote the application of domestic silicon carbide power devices in the new energy vehicle industry.

In May this year, Basic Semiconductor signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Guangzhou Radio and Television Metrology and Testing Co., Ltd. The two parties will carry out in-depth cooperation in the entire upstream and downstream industrial chain around the third-generation semiconductor power devices, and accelerate the automotive testing and certification of domestic silicon carbide power devices. In mid-August, in the "China Automotive Semiconductor First Batch Test and Verification Project" organized by the National New Energy Vehicle Technology Innovation Center, Basic Semiconductor's silicon carbide power devices, as the first batch of domestic automotive semiconductors to be tested on vehicles, successfully completed the extreme high-temperature test of a single vehicle for a total of 6,000 kilometers, and will also participate in laboratory testing, benchmarking testing and high-cold testing on the entire vehicle in the future.

Basic semiconductor automotive-grade silicon carbide power devices are about to be released, which will safeguard the safety and reliability of new energy vehicles and accelerate the process of automobile electrification in my country.

Domestic substitution of imported devices is imminent

After more than ten years of development, my country has achieved certain results in research and innovation in the semiconductor field, especially in the research of third-generation semiconductor materials, keeping up with the world's forefront, and the gap between engineering technology level and international advanced level is gradually narrowing. At present, the domestic silicon carbide device industry chain is gradually being built and improved. The silicon carbide power devices in the market mainly rely on imports, forming a monopoly situation of international manufacturers. In the face of the complex and changing international situation, it is urgent to promote the domestic replacement of imported devices.

In May this year, in order to accelerate the application of domestic silicon carbide power devices in the field of new energy vehicles, Basic Semiconductor, together with a well-known domestic automotive power manufacturer, conducted a benchmark test on its independently developed silicon carbide MOSFET. The test results show that the performance of Basic Semiconductor's silicon carbide MOSFET is comparable to that of international first-line brands of the same specification, which will become an important milestone on the road to domestic substitution of power devices.

Automotive electronics, 5G communications and the Internet of Things are considered to be the three driving forces for the next wave of semiconductor industry development. Benefiting from the support of industry policies and the popularization of environmental protection concepts, the compound annual growth rate of global and Chinese new energy electric vehicle sales is expected to reach 32%. As the core device for energy conversion, power semiconductors account for more than 40% of the semiconductor cost of new energy vehicles, and their market will usher in explosive growth.

Faced with opportunities and challenges, Basic Semiconductor will accelerate the research and development of silicon carbide power devices with higher power density and larger voltage and current levels, create high-quality domestic automotive-grade silicon carbide products, participate in the formulation of domestic automotive-grade semiconductor standards and testing and certification systems, achieve independent control and domestic substitution of silicon carbide power devices, and help "Made in China" go global.