In the microelectronics world, the power devices industry is very specific, as there are few standards and represents some percents of the mainstream semiconductor business (about 10%). However, this industry is also characterized by a high level of innovations with new advanced technologies like deep etching, the use of SOI, SiC, GaN or thin wafers to answer power devices technical challenges.
This report gives a complete analysis of the markets and new technical trends for the power devices industry.
Power devices have numerous applications. The most common are industry, automotive, traction motor, high voltage direct current, home applications and wind power.
The power devices market was about $16 billion in 2003 and $20 billion in 2004
In 2007, Yole forecasts that the market will grow to $25 billion. Over it, SiC power devices was only $12M in 2004 but is forecasted to reach more than $100M by 2009.IPMs are 45 to 50% of the total market and the most common discretes are power MOSFETs (35% of the discretes market) and BJTs (27% of the total discretes market).
In 2004, the total power devices wafer consumption was 13.2 millions x 6” wafers (4” and 6” wafers are mostly used and the wafer consumption for power devices is 7.1% of total IC wafer consumption). As a general rule, the power devices industry is about 7 to 10% of the total semiconductor industry. SOI wafers will represent about 500,000 units by 2010.
The report is presenting the current and future technical solutions to improve power devices. The key challenges are:
- Lower Rdson: the global switch resistance in the on state (to have low heating, low losses)
- Lower cell size: shrinking the chip area reduces the chip cost but power dissipation per unit area becomes then an issue
- To add protecting features: high operating temperature, latch up free, very high voltage applications, ElectroStatic Discharge (ESD) protection are requested for automotive applications
- To build robust devices
In terms of new technologies, these challenges are driving new development in deep reactive ionic etching (for isolation and new super junction structures), the use of ultra thin wafers (100µm already entering in production and 85 µm emerging), SiC, GaN and SOI wafers (Including partial SOI wafers that could be used by 2010). The report provides a complete and in-depth analysis of these emerging technologies forecasting their impacts on the related material and equipment market.
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Analysis of advanced technologies and related markets for power devices