How to solve the "range anxiety" of new energy vehicles? Wide bandgap semiconductors will have opportunities

During the National Day holiday in 2021, the difficulty of charging new energy vehicles for long-distance travel has attracted widespread attention. According to reports, a car owner spent more than 5 hours at a highway service area to charge his car. The journey that was originally 8 hours took 16 hours in the end. The difficulty of charging is becoming a key factor restricting the further development of the new energy vehicle industry. In this regard, the chip industry has a lot of room to play. Many chip companies have launched relevant solutions by achieving fast charging through battery management and increasing the range through energy management. When electric vehicles can also easily start long-distance journeys, it may be the time for them to completely replace fuel vehicles.

Long-distance travel with new energy vehicles still causes range anxiety

Despite the impact of the chip shortage, my country's new energy vehicle market has maintained rapid growth in the past two years. According to statistics, as of June 2021, the number of new energy vehicles in use was 6.03 million. In the first half of 2021, the number of newly registered new energy vehicles reached 1.1 million. As of September, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in my country has reached 17.1%.

The problems caused by the rapid increase in the number of new energy vehicles may not be obvious in normal times, but once long-distance travel begins, the problems of insufficient mileage, unreasonable distribution of charging equipment, and inability of fast charging technology to meet demand become apparent. Some experts pointed out that the reason why new energy vehicles queuing up for charging on highways during the National Day this year attracted widespread social attention is essentially that the number of new energy vehicles has increased rapidly, while charging equipment and fast charging technology have not been able to keep up, resulting in insufficient supply and mismatch between supply and demand.

In fact, many companies have realized this problem and are working hard to solve it. Recently, Swiss electrical giant ABB released an integrated electric vehicle charger, Terra 360, with a maximum output power of 360KW. It can charge 4 electric vehicles at the same time and can be fully charged in 15 minutes or even less. Charging pile companies and new energy vehicle companies are also actively building charging and swapping devices. According to reports, NIO has built a total of 109 high-speed battery swap stations across the country, and it is expected to increase to 169 before the Spring Festival. In August this year, Tesla announced the construction of 7,000 super charging piles in China.

Improving the range of new energy vehicles is also an effective way to solve the problem. Zheng Mingfa, senior director of automotive product marketing and applications in Asia Pacific at STMicroelectronics, pointed out that range, safety and cost are the main bottlenecks in the current development of new energy. Zhao Qiang, vice president of Singularity Motors, also said that the support for cars in terms of smart car networking and smart driving is to ensure our core competitiveness in new energy vehicles worldwide. On the one hand, new energy vehicle companies should strengthen battery development and strive to achieve a perfect balance between battery density and safety. On the other hand, they should strengthen the research and development of electrical architecture to solve the bottlenecks in development in order to win consumers.

Chips play a huge role in automobile energy management

Whether it is to increase the range of new energy vehicles or improve the performance of charging facilities, chip companies have a lot of room to play a role. Zheng Mingfa said that at present, new energy vehicles can reach a range of more than 500 kilometers. To increase the range, the most direct way is to increase the battery capacity, but this will bring about problems such as cost, safety and increased vehicle weight. A complete new energy management chip solution can help improve these pain points. For example, the analog front-end chip for power management can monitor the battery voltage in real time with high precision, which helps customers optimize SoC and SoH algorithms, and maximize the use of battery stored energy and increase the range under the premise of safety.

The main types of chips for new energy vehicles include main control chips, analog chips, and power semiconductors (such as MOSFET, IGBT, silicon carbide modules, transistors and diodes). The transformation from traditional fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles means the electrification and electronicization of vehicles, and the core of electrical and electronic modules is semiconductor chips. It can be said that chips are the "brain" of new energy and are crucial. For example, the analog front-end chip monitors the status of the battery, and the main control chip can determine the remaining mileage and ensure that the battery is in a safe state through calculation. Another example is that the motor controller can invert the DC power of the high-voltage battery pack into AC power to drive the motor to realize the forward and backward functions of the whole vehicle, and feed energy back to the battery when braking. Size, weight and space are important parameters of electric vehicles. In order to comply with this market trend, it is very important to introduce innovative technologies, which are conducive to extending the mileage, reducing the size of the battery (or improving the reliability of the battery), and solving problems such as fast and efficient charging.

Mu Jieli, Vice President of Regional Marketing and Applications of Power Discrete and Analog Devices Division of STMicroelectronics Asia Pacific, emphasized the importance of charging infrastructure. He pointed out that as the utilization rate of new energy vehicles increases, consumers' demand for convenient and fast charging is also increasing, so it is necessary to expand infrastructure construction, increase the number of charging stations and provide faster charging services. A complete charging station ecosystem, advanced power technology and new materials such as silicon carbide are the key development directions of the new energy vehicle industry. Advanced power technology and new materials play an important role in new energy vehicles. Advanced power technologies include silicon-based automotive low-voltage/high-voltage MOSFETs, automotive-grade Trench IGBTs and modules, and new material devices are mainly silicon carbide and modules. These advanced technologies are the core technologies of the starter generator system, on-board charger/DC-DC converter and drive motor inverter of new energy vehicles.

Wide bandgap semiconductors will have more development opportunities

In the process of promoting new energy vehicles and related charging facilities, it will bring great development opportunities to wide bandgap semiconductor industries such as silicon carbide. At present, manufacturers such as STMicroelectronics, Infineon, ON Semiconductor, WeEn Semiconductor, and BYD Semiconductor are actively launching automotive silicon carbide power modules and driver solutions, which can reduce the switching loss of high-frequency operation required by electric vehicle charging piles and improve charging efficiency.

Markus, CEO of RuEn Semiconductor, said that currently, silicon carbide and other products have been widely used in electric vehicle charging piles, on-board chargers, motorcycle igniters, motorcycle voltage regulators, headlight controls, etc. It is believed that in the future automotive market, especially in the new energy vehicle market, related solutions will be gradually introduced, and with the subsequent development of new products, they will be deployed on a large scale. Compared with traditional silicon devices, silicon carbide has significant application advantages in electric drive systems and on-board chargers due to its high frequency, low impedance, high junction temperature, and high voltage resistance. For example, in electric drive systems, it reduces losses and cooling systems, increases power density, increases cruising range, and reduces battery capacity; in on-board charger applications, it can increase the driving frequency, reduce the size of transformers and capacitors, reduce losses, and thus reduce charging time.

According to a report by research firm Omdia, driven by demand for hybrid and electric vehicles, power supplies and photovoltaic inverters, the emerging market for silicon carbide and gallium nitride power semiconductors is expected to exceed the $1 billion mark this year. Combined with the current global sales revenue of silicon carbide and gallium nitride power semiconductors, it is expected that the annual market revenue will grow by double digits in the next decade and will exceed $5 billion by 2029. Silicon-based power devices will still occupy half of the power semiconductor market, and wide bandgap devices will have a significant growth in the future, increasing from 5% market share in 2020 to 17% in 2024.