Third-generation semiconductor technology competition is fierce! The Past and Present Life of Silicon Carbide (SiC)
Oct 09,2021
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1. Silicon carbide gallium nitride dominated, the third generation of semiconductor technology competition fierce!
In 2021, demand for third-generation semiconductor GaN and SiC components and modules will be strong as demand for 5G communications, consumer electronics, industrial energy conversion and new energy vehicles will increase, driving demand for applications such as base stations, energy converters (Converter) and charging piles. According to CASA data, in 2020, the overall output value of China's third-generation semiconductors will exceed 710 billion. Since the beginning of the year, multiple good news is also stimulating people's attention to the third generation semiconductor industry. On August 14, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially announced that silicon carbide (SiC) composites and carbon-based composites will be included in the "14th Five-Year Plan" industrial scientific and technological innovation-related development plan, in order to comprehensively break through key core technologies and overcome "stuck neck" varieties. Industry investment is rising, new players are entering, demand is emerging, and the third-generation semiconductor market is also rising.
Silicon carbide, gallium nitride has matured
Third-generation semiconductors are the preferred for high-frequency, light and thin applications in the 5G era. Emerging fields such as 5G and new energy vehicles require better performance of hardware, and the efficiency requirements of semiconductor products will also increase, and the intergenerational division of semiconductor materials will appear. Third-generation semiconductors refer to wide band gap semiconductor materials such as silicon carbide (SiC), gallium nitride (GaN), oxide semiconductors (such as zinc oxide ZnO), group III nitrides (such as aluminum nitride AlN), and diamond semiconductors. Compared with the first generation semiconductor materials (silicon, germanium) and the second generation semiconductor materials (gallium arsenide, indium phosphide), the third generation semiconductor materials have wider band gap, higher breakdown electric field, higher thermal conductivity, higher electron saturation rate and higher radiation resistance, and are more suitable for the production of high temperature, high frequency, radiation resistance and high power devices, there is a surge in application demand in strategic emerging industries such as 5G, millimeter wave communications, new energy vehicles, photovoltaic power generation, and aerospace.
Silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) are the two most mature varieties in the third generation of semiconductors. Silicon carbide (SiC) has the characteristics of higher operating temperature and lower switching and conduction losses, which is suitable for solar inverters, industrial power supplies and main control circuits of new energy vehicles. Gallium nitride (GaN) is suitable for high-speed and high-power components due to its high electron mobility and high electron saturation velocity. A typical application scenario is the next-generation wireless communication system. The performance of SiC makes it advantageous in high voltage and high power applications higher than 1200V, while GaN power devices are more suitable for high frequency applications of 40-1200V, especially in applications below 600V/3KW.
Silicon Carbide (SiC)
Silicon carbide (SiC) can be mainly used in the field of power electronics and microwave radio frequency, and the sub-sectors include vehicles, photovoltaics, and consumer electronics. Power semiconductor devices made of conductive silicon carbide substrates include: junction barrier Schottky power diode (JBS), PiN power diode and hybrid PiN Schottky diode (MPS); metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET), bipolar transistor (BJT), junction field effect transistor (JFET), insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) and gate turn-off thyristor (GTO), etc, it can be applied to new energy vehicles and photovoltaic power generation in the field of electronic and electrical. RF semiconductor devices made of semi-insulating substrates include RF switches, LNAs, power amplifiers, filters, etc., and can be widely used in 5G communications, satellites, radars, and other fields.
Gallium Nitride (GaN)
At present, the gallium nitride single crystal has a growth size of 2 inches and 4 inches, and is generally not used as a substrate material, but a GaN-on-SiC device, a GaN-on-Si device, a sapphire-based gallium nitride epitaxial device, and the like are grown by using a heteroepitaxial technology. In terms of devices and applications, first of all, GaN-on-SiC devices and GaN-on-Si devices can be used as microwave RF devices for 5G communications, radar early warning, satellite communications and so on.
In addition, GaN wide bandgap power transistors can provide high power efficiency under high voltage and high switching frequency conditions, enabling them to be applied to power electronics such as smart grids, high-speed rail transit, new energy vehicles, and consumer electronics. Its performance far exceeds that of silicon MOSFET products. According to Yole data, the global market for GaN RF will be US $0.645 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach about US $2 billion in 2024. In the GaN power market, driven by the application of consumer fast chargers, the global market size will exceed US $0.35 billion by 2024. GaN based on silicon substrate can also produce blue LED and white LED,GaN because of its high frequency characteristics of the material is a good material for the preparation of ultraviolet light devices, can be applied in the military field, including fire suppression system, ultraviolet guidance, ultraviolet communication, etc., as well as flame detection, corona discharge detection, medical monitoring and diagnosis, such as the civil field.
In addition to SiC and GaN, the third-generation semiconductors also include many other materials, including group III nitrides (AlN, InGaN, InAlN, AlGaN, AlInGaN, etc.), oxide semiconductors (including ZnO, CaTiO3, IGZO, β-Ga2O3 ,TiO2), and diamond semiconductors. Started with silicon carbide-based gallium nitride technology, it was introduced more than 20 years ago and has become a strong competitor to LDMOS and GaAs in RF power applications. Silicon carbide-based, gallium nitride, silicon-based gallium nitride closely followed, silicon-based gallium nitride in addition to deep penetration in the military radar field, it is also Huawei, Nokia, Samsung and other telecommunications original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) 5G large-scale MIMO infrastructure preferred.
In terms of growth rate, the growth rate and volume of third-generation semiconductors in power devices are greater than that of microwave RF. The microwave sector, which has already peaked in 2020, is likely to decline this year because of the slowdown in 5G construction. Therefore, it is speculated that the real application field of the third generation semiconductor is still in power devices or power electronic devices, and the market penetration mainly includes new energy vehicles and photovoltaic inverters.
Domestic ecology gradually established
Third-generation semiconductors are still an emerging technology and the global market is in its infancy. The third-generation semiconductor industry chain mainly includes substrates, epitaxial materials, device design, manufacturing, modules and applications. In terms of epitaxy and device design, due to the relatively simple technology and low threshold, the current gap between domestic and foreign is small; while device manufacturing is another aspect with a large gap. Due to the earlier development of foreign countries, a large number of industries have accumulated in the manufacturing process, and their products have high yield and reliability.
Domestic third-generation semiconductor devices have quickly entered the new energy vehicles, photovoltaic inverters, 5G base stations, PD fast charging and other applications, silicon carbide is mainly used in new energy vehicles and industrial control and other fields, nitride devices are mainly used in 5G base stations and other fields. In 2020, the total output value of power electronics and RF electronics in China's third-generation semiconductor industry exceeded 10 billion billion yuan, an increase of 69.5 percent over the same period last year. Among them, the output value of SiC and GaN power electronics reached 4.47 billion billion yuan, up 54% year-on-year. The output value of GaN microwave radio frequency reached 6.08 billion billion yuan, up 80.3 year-on-year.
In recent years, China has invested a lot in the third generation of semiconductors and their substrates in order to catch up with foreign countries, but it is only scattered in the application field of power devices. In terms of IDM and foundry services, there is still a gap with the level of international mass production of 6 inches and 8-inch mass production plants under construction. In addition, silicon carbide with higher threshold will be dominated by IDM for a long time. Under the dominant industrial structure of the United States and Japan, the opportunities of Chinese manufacturers have also been squeezed to a certain extent.
Driven by the strength of China's policy, the mainstream enterprises of the third generation semiconductor materials in China are actively laying out, the market capacity is expanding and the level of industrial chain cooperation is constantly improving. CLC 55 is one of the few enterprises in China to realize the whole industry chain from 4-6 inch silicon carbide epitaxial growth, chip design and manufacturing, module packaging. Tyco Tianrun has already produced SiC SBD in mass production, covering 600V/5A ~ 50A, 1200V/5A ~ 50A and 1700V/10A series. Shenzhen Basic Semiconductor has 3D SiC technology and introduced 1200V SiC MOSFET products. Han's original integrated silicon carbide JMOSFET structure technology has introduced the world's only mass-produced SiC JMOS product, realizing the in-chip integration of silicon carbide DMOSFET and JBS (Schottky diode). In addition, it is worth noting that in recent years, the application of SiC wafers as substrate materials is gradually maturing, and the cost is showing a significant downward trend, which has the basis for large-scale industrial applications.
2. Silicon Carbide (SiC) of the past lives!
SiC has excellent performance as a semiconductor material, especially for power conversion and control of power components.Compared with traditional silicon devices, it can achieve low on-resistance, high-speed switching and high-temperature and high-voltage operation, so it is very popular in power supply, automobile, railway, industrial equipment and household consumer electronic equipment. Although SiC can finally be manufactured by artificial synthesis, the mass production of SiC power components was once a headache for researchers because of the extremely difficult processing.
※ what is Silicon Carbide (SiC)?
Silicon carbide is a compound semiconductor material composed of carbon elements and silicon elements.Silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN), aluminum nitride (ALN), gallium oxide (Ga2O3), etc., are collectively referred to as wide band gap semiconductor materials because the band gap is greater than 2.2eV, and are also known as third-generation semiconductor materials in China.
In the semiconductor industry from the material end is divided:
The first generation of semiconductor materials: such as silicon (Si) and germanium (Ge);
Second-generation compound semiconductor materials: such as gallium arsenide (GaAs), indium phosphide (InP), etc;
The third generation of wide band gap materials: such as silicon carbide (SiC), gallium nitride (GaN), aluminum nitride (ALN), gallium oxide (Ga2O3) and so on.
Among them, silicon carbide and gallium nitride are the semiconductor materials with the brightest commercial prospects at present, which can be called a new generation of "golden track" in the semiconductor industry ".
Silicon carbide was discovered for the first time in the history of mankind in 1891, when American Acheson discovered a carbon compound in electrolytic diamond, which is the first synthesis and discovery of silicon carbide. After a hundred years of exploration, especially after entering the 21st century, mankind finally sorted out the advantages and characteristics of silicon carbide, and the use of silicon carbide characteristics, to make a variety of new devices, silicon carbide industry has been rapid development.
Compared with traditional silicon materials, the band gap of silicon carbide is 3 times that of silicon; the thermal conductivity is 4-5 times that of silicon; the breakdown voltage is 8 times that of silicon; the electron saturation drift rate is 2 times that of silicon.Various characteristics mean that silicon carbide is particularly suitable for the manufacture of high-temperature, high-voltage, high-current high-frequency high-power devices.
At present, there are about 200 kinds of crystal structure forms of silicon carbide, which are divided into cubic close-packed zinc blende α crystal structure (2H, 4H, 6H, 15R) and hexagonal close-packed wurtzite β crystal structure (3C-SiC), etc.
The β crystal structure (3C-SiC) can be used to manufacture high-frequency devices and substrates of other thin film materials, for example, to grow a gallium nitride epitaxial layer, to manufacture a silicon carbide-based gallium nitride microwave radio frequency device, and the like. Alpha crystal 4H can be used to manufacture high-power devices; 6H is the most stable and can be used to make optoelectronic devices.
Performance advantages of ※ silicon carbide
If only silicon carbide chips are counted, silicon carbide has unparalleled advantages over traditional silicon-based power chips in power semiconductors: silicon carbide can withstand greater current and voltage, higher switching speed, and less energy loss., More high temperature resistance. Therefore, the power module made of silicon carbide can correspondingly reduce the components of capacitors, inductors, coils, and heat dissipation components, making the entire power device module lighter, energy-saving, and stronger output power, while also enhancing reliability, The advantages are very obvious, the specific summary is as follows:
1, lower impedance, resulting in smaller product design and higher efficiency;
2. Suitable for higher frequency and faster switching speed;
3, excellent high temperature characteristics, can work at higher temperatures.
※ why is silicon carbide so expensive?
Everyone knows the huge business prospects of silicon carbide in the future, but all those who join this industry will encounter the first most realistic problem. What about materials?
At least half of the reason for the extremely mature business environment of the traditional silicon-based industry is that silicon materials are relatively easy to obtain.The mature and efficient preparation technology of silicon material makes silicon material very low at present. At present, 6-inch silicon polished wafer is only 150 yuan, 8-inch 300 yuan and 12-inch 850 yuan.
Only raw materials are cheap enough, the scale of the industry can be big!
At present, with Czochralski method, silicon single crystal rods of about 2-3 meters can be grown in 72 hours, and one single crystal rod can cut thousands of silicon wafers at a time.
Do you know how thick silicon carbide single crystal can grow in 72 hours? Only a few centimeters are less!!!
At present, the fastest method for growing silicon carbide single crystals has a growth rate of about 0.1mm/h-0.2mm/h, so there are only crystals with a thickness of 7.2mm to 14.4mm in 72 hours.
Therefore, you can imagine what kind of silicon carbide monocrystals can be produced. At present, the price of 4-inch silicon carbide substrate is about 2,000-3,000 yuan, and the price of 6-inch substrate is 6,000-8,000 yuan. The price of epitaxial wafer is at least X2 or more, and it is still out of stock.
As the world's leading silicon carbide enterprises, the United States Cree (Cree) almost monopolized more than 70% of the production capacity, so domestic and foreign downstream manufacturers, have signed long-term contracts with Cree to lock capacity.
※ Silicon Carbide Market
Silicon Carbide MOSFETs and Silicon Carbide Diodes are used in solar, UPS, industrial, automotive and other applications:It mainly focuses on the inverter in photovoltaic energy storage, the UPS power supply of the data center server, and the smart grid charging station. However, with the development of electric and hybrid electric vehicles (xEV) in recent years, SiC is also rapidly emerging in this new field. The radiation industries include energy (PV,EV charging, smart grid, etc.), automobile (OBC, inverter), infrastructure (server), etc.
In summary, in the near future, we can expect that silicon carbide will have a revolutionary impact on the power electronics industry!
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