The industry is still waiting for a transistor, but PV inverters, motor drives and EV/HEV will push the market up...

SiC challenges a $2.6B silicon device market

This $2.6B Total Accessible Market is part of the overall $12B Si-based power discretes business (2008). Today the largest applications in potential revenue remain Power Supply PFC, UPS and Motor AC drives. Tomorrow, EV/HEV and inverters for PV installations will take the lead exhibiting higher CAGR (>15%/year)

However, cost issues slow-down SiC penetration and we only forecast ~4% of the overall Silicon-based power discretes market to be displaced by SiC in 2019.

Low-Voltage applications (< 1.2kV) are representing over 99% of today SiC device sales but we anticipate a huge increase of Medium-Voltage applications (1.2kV-1.7kV) in the next 2 years. High-Voltage apps will slowly appear from 2013-2014 along with technology improvement and cost reduction.

The entrance of SiC in the promising EV/HEV field has been postponed to 2014 as no switch has reached large volume production yet and car makers are still improving silicon IGBT technology. Moreover, most of the current or new entrant EV/HEV manufacturers are working on both GaN and SiC for their next-gen inverters and no choice has been validated yet.

In the 600-1200 V range, promising GaN technologies might threaten SiC. However, SiC industry maturity should protect it from frontal competition at least for the 2 next years

In 2008 the SiC device market reached $23M . 2009 should exhibit something similar as the economic downturn has lead to a quasi null growth rate this year. 2014 will be the year of expected introduction of SiC in the automotive industry leading to a $100M market before 2015. In a decade from now, we anticipate a market size of several hundred million dollars, dominated by EV/HEV and PV inverter applications.

4" is in full-production and 6" is in the starting blocks

The total SiC substrate merchant market, including both n-type and S.I. has reached ~$48M in 2008. It is expected to exceed $300M in a decade.

CREE stays ahead of the competition, but its relative market share on the open market is shrinking as II-VI, SiCrystal and several new entrants are gaining momentum in the substrate battle.

We saw the emergence of 2 new entrants in SiC substrates in 2008: N-Crystals (Russia) and Xiamen Powerway Advanced Material Co., Ltd (China) who are manufacturing and marketing 2" and 3" SiC substrates 4H & 6H in both S.I. or n-type doping.

Early 2009, another Chinese company, TankeBlue, announced impressive progress on scale-up production of 3" SiC wafers, exhibiting micropipe density < 10/cm². This let us think that Chinese companies are becoming more and more present on the market place proposing products with state-of-the-art specs and competitive pricing.

We assess that the technical gap between yesterday's leaders and today's challengers is decreasing day by day.

4" wafers are now at full-production at CREE and in final qualification phase at II-VI, Dow Corning and Nippon Steel. 6" is already announced by 2010. 150 mm wafers will definitely accelerate the cost reduction of SiC device manufacturing.

If no transistor, no bright future for SiC business

 Transistor availability is the key condition to envision significant market growth. According to recent announcements from CREE, SemiSouth, TranSiC, Rohm or Mitsubishi, we remain confident that 2010 will see first commercial volume offers in MOSFET, J-FET or BJT.

Once this condition is met, the SiC device industry will have to cut the cost to fit with client expectations. 2 parameters will have to be improved:

·         SiC substrate $/mm² cost

·         SiC device manufacturing cost and yield, with a particular emphasis on epitaxy process.

The adoption of the SiC technology will also have to go through the severe qualification process of the industry (especially in the automotive sector). There, progress on reliability and robustness must fit the current silicon standards.

If all conditions are passed, then we can forecast a $800M market size for SiC devices in a decade from now.

This report presents the detailed major market metrics of the current and projected SiC device and substrate business, describing the targeted applications, the key players, the supply-chain, the volumes and related market size of each segment. It gives the possible total accessible market for SiC electronics, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of this technology over the current established silicon technologies. It describes the recent progress of device technologies as well as the new challenges offered by 4" and 6" substrates

Company index

AABB, ACREO, AIST, Alstom, AnsaldoBreda, Areva, Bombardier, Bridgestone, Caracal, CREE, Crysband, Delphi, DENSO, Dow Corning, Dynex, Eaton Powerware, EnerCon, Epigress, eSiCat, ETC, Eudyna, Fraunhofer ISE, Fuji Electric, GE, GeneSiC, Grundfos, Hitachi, Honda, Hyundai, II-VI, Infineon, Leroy Sommer, Liebert Emerson, MicroSemi, Mitsubishi, N-Crystals, NeosemiTech, Nippon Steel, Nissan Motor, Norstel, Northrop Grumman, NovaSiC, OKI Electric, Okmetic, Osram, PAM Xiamen, Panasonic, Philips, Powerex, Raytheon, RFMD, Rockwell, Rohm, Sanrex, Schneider Electric, Semikron, Semisouth, SEW, Shindengen, Showa Denko, SiCed, SiCrystal, Siemens, Skyworks, SMA, STMicroelectronics, Sumitomo SEI, TankeBlue, Toshiba, Toyota, TranSiC, TriQuint, United Silicon Carbide, Vestas, Volvo, WideTronix, Yaskawa