Global manufacturers are competing for the third generation semiconductor!
The third generation semiconductor is the most popular topic in the high-tech field. Everyone is in the fast alliance, and wants to share a share of this opportunity.
In the past 30 years, TSMC and ITU are good at manufacturing logic IC, which are mostly made of silicon. "Silicon is basically a fairly versatile material. "Yang Ruilin, research director of International Strategic Development Institute of Industrial Science and technology of the Institute of engineering and research, observed.
But silicon also has some weaknesses. If you use the door as a metaphor, the semiconductor made of silicon, like a wooden door made of wood, can be opened by a slight pull (from insulation to conductivity).
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Who can be the next winner when the market is just starting?
It takes a lot of effort to apply a large voltage to open the gate of semiconductor materials and let electrons pass through. Therefore, to deal with high voltage, high frequency signals, or in the speed of signal conversion, the third generation semiconductor is superior to the traditional silicon.
At present, the second generation semiconductor is referred to as gallium arsenide and indium phosphide, "which is a technology developed in 1980s. "What is now called the third generation semiconductor, referring to gallium nitride (GAN) and silicon carbide (SIC)," this is a new technology that started to market after 2000, "said Wang Zunmin, an analyst at the Tuo Industrial Research Institute of trendforce.
The third generation semiconductor market is still in its infancy. The proportion of second and third generation semiconductors to the global semiconductor market is less than 10%, and if only the third generation semiconductor is seen, it will only be about 1/100. "Said Wang. According to the International Institute of Obstetrics of the Institute of engineering and research, the market size of compound power semiconductor (i.e. the second and third generation semiconductors) last year was about 29.8 billion US dollars, but it will grow to 36.17 billion dollars in 2025, and more than $43billion in 2030, with a great growth potential.
In particular, the third type semiconductor is not good to do. Taking communication chips as an example, we should choose different materials according to different communication requirements, and arrange them accurately in the atomic scale. The difficulty is to give you various kinds of rocks and pile up a stable tower. Who can use these materials to produce more energy-saving and better performance transistors is the winner of this market.
At present, the third generation semiconductor has three main application markets. First, gallium nitride is used to make 5g, high frequency communication materials (RF GaN). Over the past 20 years, many people want to make components that can be used in 5g high-frequency communication with mature silicon processes. The most famous is the RF 360 program launched by Qualcomm in 2013. At the time, concerns were raised that Qualcomm's new technology was launched at the time of the "dead time" of manufacturers of compound semiconductors for communications, and shares of stable word also fell sharply.
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The more difficult it is to make the gross profit in the three main markets, the higher the gross profit
As a result, Qualcomm produced silicon chips that were very hot and could not be used on mobile phones; later, even Qualcomm went back to order with stable words. Industry insiders observe that communication will be developing more and more high frequency. In the future, high-frequency communication chips will be the world of compound semiconductors. Wang Zunmin observes that this field is also the highest gross profit rate part of compound semiconductor manufacturing, and the gross profit of both stable word and macro group is 30-40%.
The second market is to manufacture power converters (power GaN) with gallium nitride, which is the most popular field at present. In the past, the most difficult part of the production of related products was to obtain the silicon carbide substrate. In the interview, Zhang Yi, Dean of International Semiconductor Industry College of Yangming Jiaotong University, showed us a piece of SiC substrate, which was 6-inch wide round piece, which demanded a price of up to NT $80000.
But in recent years, the technology of stacking gallium nitride on silicon substrate has begun to appear in the market. This technology can reduce the cost of compound semiconductor greatly, and can be used to produce and process hundreds of volts voltage conversion, which can achieve small and energy saving. At present, it can be seen that the original size of pen and electricity transformer can only be biscuit size. Oppo, Lenovo and other companies are more active in building this technology in high-end mobile phones and pen power.
On March 1, Nomura Securities published an industrial report entitled "a Gan Chang", which said that the third generation semiconductor will reshape the global consumer power market in the next 2-3 years, replacing IGBT power management chip made of silicon. Nomura Securities report predicts that in 2023, the market output will grow at a rate of more than 60% a year. Zhang also believes that the third generation semiconductor energy conversion efficiency can reach more than 95 percent, once adopted substantially, "Taiwan can save the next nuclear power plant in China".
Global manufacturers are competing for the third generation semiconductor!
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Reshaping the layout of consumer power supply
The third market is silicon carbide power supply chip (SIC). The special feature of SiC materials is that if we want to convert high voltage of more than 1000 volts, only silicon carbide can achieve this requirement; in other words, if it is used on high-speed railway, it can be used to convert wind power generation, or to promote large electric ships and electric vehicles, silicon carbide can be used to make it more efficient.
In the past, electric vehicles used IGBT power conversion chips made of silicon, but Tesla Model 3 first used silicon carbide components made of Italian semiconductor to convert electric energy for electric vehicles. According to the data provided by Infineon, the endurance of the same electric vehicle can be increased by 4% after replacing the silicon carbide chip. Because every power supply of the electric vehicle is extremely expensive, every car factory actively layout silicon carbide technology. Infineon expects that silicon carbide chips will account for 20% of the automotive electronic power components by 2025.
In 2018, Roma semiconductor announced that silicon carbide capacity will be increased by 16 times by 2024. Renault also announced that it would be in alliance with Italian semiconductor, and silicon carbide chips needed are exclusively supplied by Italian semiconductor. In 2019, Germany Flowserve group cooperated with Cree in the United States to develop silicon carbide technology exclusively with Flowserve. In the same year, Cree announced an investment of $1billion to build giant silicon carbide plants. Everyone has seen that whether the past car is fuel-saving is determined by the engine, and how to save electricity in the future is determined by the third generation semiconductor technology.
TSMC has been developing for many years in this field. It has been spending money on its own, and it is studied by the epitaxial technology which is the most basic stacking of different materials. It is observed that TSMC is still mainly composed of compound semiconductors with silicon substrate. This technology has limited application in communication, but it is quite competitive in electric vehicle and other applications. According to the annual report of TSMC, two platforms of 150 volts and 650 volts have been developed on GaN on silicon substrate in 2020. TSMC will therefore be on the third generation semiconductor of electric vehicles. In February last year, Italian semiconductor announced cooperation with TSMC, which has already produced compound semiconductor silicon wafer for Italian vehicles.
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Future technology development is related to the electric vehicle power saving capacity
In fact, on the power conversion chip for consumer electronics, foreign investors pointed out that TSMC has helped Navitas, an Irish IC design company, to produce it from 2014. In 2021, Navitas announced that they had sold 13million third generation semiconductor transformers, and currently they are shipping 1million transformers a month, with a yield of almost 100%. Navitas has a 50% market share in this area, and it has proved that TSMC has been quietly making money from third generation semiconductors.
The compound semiconductor is still mainly produced on 6-inch equipment, but the technology of TSMC can be produced by 8-inch equipment, with higher efficiency. After the technology is mature, the old 8-inch plant of Taiji Electric Co., Ltd. will further improve its profit due to the depreciation has been completed and the new application of compound semiconductor is replaced.
The world advanced because of its large number of 8-inch equipment, and also takes the same strategy as TSMC to vigorously develop silicon based Gan chip manufacturing technology to improve added value. The world's advanced chairman's strategy said in an interview that it is actively building a complete gallium nitride processing technology, which will also establish its own wafer thinning technology, in addition to the self-finished process of the front and rear sections.
China US crystal is another force that actively invests in the third generation semiconductor. Besides becoming the largest shareholder of hojk at the end of last year, and entering into the manufacturing of compound semiconductor for communication, we learned that the technology of the third generation semiconductor substrate of China US crystal under the global crystal group has gradually formed, but the problem of good rate and cost still needs to be overcome.
Meanwhile, China and the United States are quietly integrating resources, and another way to cut into the third generation semiconductor market for automobile. Lu Jianzhi, the eldest son of lumingguang, director of China and the United States, is currently a silicon Mao director. According to the annual report of silicon Mao, silicon oxide is actively developing the fast charging technology of gallium nitride. Lumingguang is currently chairman of Datong. Datong also has the technology of self-made electric bus power system. Lu Mingguang interviewed Lu Mingguang in this magazine. He is also chairman of Pengcheng. Lumingguang said that the current price of 6-inch silicon wafer is $20 and that of 6-inch silicon carbide is $1500. When the cost of silicon carbide can be reduced to $750, MOSFET for automotive SiC will be popular. He estimates that "probably, it is also possible to make MOSFET more popular for vehicle use." It will take more than five years.
According to Zhang Yi, Taiwan, China is currently in the third generation semiconductor field, which is "strong in manufacturing, weak in both ends". There are many companies that do OEM manufacturing, but there are not many companies capable of designing the third generation semiconductor IC design. The high frequency circuit design needs the theoretical basis of mathematics, physics and electromagnetic wave. The power IC design needs the integration background of mechanical and electrical (mechanical, electronic and motor), and the design talents are very rare. In addition, Taiwan needs to break through the technology of substrate manufacturing; for example, the manufacturing of communication IC requires insulating silicon carbide substrate. If Taiwan has the ability to make the base plate, the development of stable word and macro technology will be faster.
In developing the third generation semiconductor, whether China Taiwan or Chinese mainland, there is still a big gap between Europe and the United States. Yingfeiling, the top 10 semiconductor factories in the world, Gao Jinping, senior manager, told the magazine that the current electric vehicle specifications of the mainstream car factories in the world have developed to 800 volt high-voltage platform, which means that silicon carbide, which is difficult for Taiwan, will become the mainstream. Infineon has developed silicon carbide technology for more than 25 years, and 20 car factories have been using and evaluating the silicon carbide products of Infineon.
Gao pointed out that in the future, not only the third generation semiconductor is needed for electric vehicles, but also can be used in the future, from improving the efficiency of solar power generation, shortening the charging time of electric vehicles, improving the power efficiency of data center and reducing the power supply volume of the mobile device.
At present, the Chinese mainland also desperately invest in the third generation of semiconductors, such as HUAWEI investing in silicon carbide crystal, and the long-term production of LED's three safety photoelectricity is also attracting attention due to its similar materials. But industry insiders say that, taking San'an photoelectric as an example, the compound semiconductor capacity is about 1500, which is still not small compared with the capacity of tens of thousands of pieces of stable Mao and Hongjie Science in Taiwan.
The third generation semiconductor is the key technology that can not be ignored in the future to seize the advantages of electric vehicles, new energy, even national defense and space. Whoever leads in this field can win in this field and have the opportunity to become the next Taiwan power.
Source of manuscript: financial information network