Anhai: Demand for automotive-grade SiC may exceed 100 billion, moving towards IDM model

Looking back on 2023, what progress has the silicon carbide and gallium nitride industry made? What changes have occurred? What new opportunities and challenges will 2024 bring?

In order to better interpret the industrial landscape and explore the future direction, Experts Talk Three and a Half Generations and Expert Aurora Awards jointly planned the special report "Experts Outlook - 2024, Full Firepower".

The guest in this issue is Zeng Zhaoxiong, deputy general manager of Anhai Semiconductor. Mr. Zeng shared a lot of useful information during the interview:

• Plans to build a high-standard wafer fab to develop new products and new processes to ensure stable production capacity supply;

  
  

• SiC MOSFTE has been applied to industries with higher technical requirements such as aviation, navigation, industrial automation control, engineering machinery, mining trucks, and ultra-high voltage;
  

  
  

• In 2027, the scale of SiC's automotive market will be between 100 billion and 120 billion. Domestic companies urgently need to improve their capabilities in three aspects.

  
  

• The second-generation trench SiC MOSFET will be launched, with a 15 milliohm yield rate increased to 85% and a 40 milliohm yield rate exceeding 95%, which is more cost-effective than silicon.

Please read below for more interviews. In addition, more leading companies will participate in "Expert Outlook" in the future, so stay tuned!

Zeng Zhaoxiong: In order to meet customer needs and adapt to the competitive environment, Anhai will mainly make a lot of efforts in supply chain integration, product upgrade and iteration in 2023, provide customers with more application solutions, and improve customer stickiness.

(1) In terms of ensuring stable delivery, overseas foundry production capacity is mainly used for the upgrading and development of trench processes. Most of the foundry production capacity is transferred to Taiwan and the Mainland. The main drive-level products are also 100% domestically produced and completed. Customer verification and batch supply begins. 

(2) In May 2023, the headquarters will be moved from Guangzhou to Hefei, Anhui, and plans to build a high-standard wafer fab to develop new products and new processes to ensure stable production capacity supply.

(3) Continuously increase investment in research and development, strengthen the construction of technical service teams, and have achieved the ability to provide customers with one-stop technical support and full solution customization from chips, modules, and application solutions.

(4) Continuous investment in the research and development of trench-type products and UHV products above 1700V has further improved the power density of the products. The second-generation trench-type process is also actively promoted, and the power density has increased by 15% compared with the first-generation trench. Products above 3300V have also been designed and are being tape-out.

SiC achieves breakthroughs in many fields:

Zeng Zhaoxiong: (1) At present, SiC technology has been used in manned aircraft and underwater propellers abroad. Domestically, Anhai Semiconductor’s SiC power modules and electronic control solutions have been verified by 1-2 person flying car manufacturers. Achieve mass production delivery.

(2) Through self-developed gate oxide process technology, our SiC MOSFET has been mass-produced in two domestic new energy vehicle main drives, and has achieved 20,000 hours of continuous simulated aging experiments in applications such as construction machinery motor drives. No recession, volume shipments are now available. 

(3) The newly developed second-generation trench product 1200V 15 milliohm trench MOSFET engineering chips have flowed out of the experimental line. Judging from the preliminary testing, the design only needs to be adjusted to solve the problem of excessive leakage current.

(4) In terms of strategy, in order to further adapt to the cost reduction trend of SiC products, Anhai has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with a well-known domestic silicon carbide substrate manufacturer to ensure the supply of substrate materials in special specifications, stable production capacity and price advantages.

Zeng Zhaoxiong: In terms of materials, the domestic 6-inch yield rate continues to increase and the cost continues to decrease. It not only completes import substitution, but also exports to overseas markets. Several domestic manufacturers have also launched 8-inch substrates and passed preliminary verification.

In terms of wafer manufacturing, the yield rates of various factories have also improved rapidly, with many factories exceeding the 90% yield mark.

In terms of chips, SiC MOSFET chips and modules have moved from the application competition stage of charging piles, OBCs, and photovoltaic inverters to higher-end applications such as Xinyuan automobile main drives, industrial control, and engineering machinery. In terms of batch application and cost reduction, each company has achieved varying degrees of results, which also represents the continuous improvement of SiC MOSFET product technology, high reliability and fiercer competition.

Experts say three and a half generations: In terms of cost reduction and efficiency improvement, what are the new changes that deserve the most attention and attention in 2023?

Zeng Zhaoxiong: First, leading international companies are rapidly expanding production capacity, and domestic fabs are also increasing investment to transform experimental lines into production lines with large-scale mass production supply.

Second, many domestic design companies are working hard to transform into IDM, and Anhai is also integrating the supply chain and building its own silicon carbide wafer fab.

Experts say three and a half generations: Cost is a double-edged sword. The large-scale development of the industry needs to be close to the low cost of silicon devices, but it must also prevent being counterattacked by low prices. What do you think of low prices and homogeneous competition in the industry? What good practices and suggestions does your company have?

Zeng Zhaoxiong: First, reduce costs by improving yield and product design processes, rather than blindly choosing low-cost materials or materials with downgraded physical properties to reduce costs. Our second-generation trench SiC MOSFET has a 20% higher power density than planar high-density products. The 1200V 15 milliohm yield has increased from the initial 70% to the current 85%. The 1200V 40 milliohm and 650V 30 milliohm yields have exceeded 95%.

Second, improve product performance, improve consistency and reliability, reduce failure rates, and integrate and optimize application solutions to reduce the cost of the entire solution to enhance competitiveness and avoid price competition limited to homogeneous products. .

Zeng Zhaoxiong: (1) The most important opportunities in the industry are still in the fields of new energy vehicles, charging piles, industrial power supplies, photovoltaic inverters, energy storage power supplies, wind power generation, rail transit and other fields.

As the cost performance of SiC continues to improve, we do not rule out that in the future, any industry or product that can use silicon MOSFET will have the opportunity to apply it. Currently, Anhai has applied SiC MOSFET to aviation, navigation, industrial automation control, engineering machinery, mining trucks, and ultra-high voltage. and other industries with higher technical requirements.

(2) In order to help customers quickly transition from silicon MOSFET to SiC MOSFET solutions, we can provide customers with complete motor drive solutions and power supply product solutions, including adaptive sine wave electric drive solutions within 200KW of different motor types. One-stop service from cutting-edge research on product design to project feasibility demonstration, project planning document, project completion time definition, design schematics, product BOM, key device MCU or DSP source code, and overall industrial structure design.

(3) Now, together with customers, we have completed the research and development and batch application of aviation motor drives, marine motor drives, engineering machinery traveling motor drives, oil and water pump electromechanical drives, and electric drive solutions for various hydraulic functional equipment. The driver solutions all use 100% domestically produced chips, with a peak electrical efficiency of up to 99.5%. The driver solutions are all self-developed source code, 100% self-compiled algorithm source code, no algorithm packaging library, and the extended Kalman filter observer is used when there is no encoder mode. , this observer is not common in ordinary frequency conversion products and is suitable for high-performance servo systems. The observer is based on minimum variance estimation and uses a recursive method to achieve system adaptive control to meet customer requirements for high performance and low cost.