Silicon Carbide Wafer Industry Chain Research Report 2024
What is Silicon Carbide Wafer?
Silicon carbide (SiC) is a new type of semiconductor material, which is becoming an ideal choice for power electronic devices due to its excellent performance of high voltage resistance, high temperature resistance and low loss. SiC wafers are the foundation of the SiC industry chain, directly affecting the performance of downstream semiconductor devices.
What is the silicon carbide industry chain?
The silicon carbide industry chain mainly consists of three links: upstream raw material production, midstream semiconductor manufacturing and downstream application market.
Upstream Raw Material Production
Upstream raw material production mainly involves the production of silicon carbide crystals and graphite. Silicon carbide crystals are produced by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and hydrothermal methods, of which CVD is the mainstream production method, including raw material preparation, crystal growth and crystal processing.
Graphite, as a carbon material with good electrical conductivity, also plays an important role in the silicon carbide industry chain, and needs to be crushed, ball-milled, screened and dried to meet the needs of different application scenarios.
Midstream Semiconductor Manufacturing
Midstream semiconductor manufacturing is the core link of the silicon carbide industry chain, including silicon carbide single crystal growth, epitaxial wafer manufacturing and device manufacturing.
- Silicon carbide single-crystal growth: the main use of direct-drawing method (Czochralski method) and zone melting method two methods. Zone melting method has become the mainstream method because of its high single crystal quality and production efficiency.
- Epitaxial wafer manufacturing: silicon carbide monocrystalline growth of single crystal silicon wafers for thin film growth, in order to form a specific performance of the epitaxial layer. The technical difficulty of epitaxial wafer manufacturing lies in the control of the thickness of the epitaxial layer, crystal orientation and doping concentration and other parameters.
- Device manufacturing: Epitaxial wafer processing into a variety of semiconductor devices, such as diodes, MOSFETs, IGBTs and so on. The technical difficulties in device manufacturing lie in optimizing device structure, improving device performance and reducing device cost.
Downstream Application Market
The downstream application market mainly includes new energy vehicles, power electronics, high-speed railroads and other fields.
- New energy vehicles: Silicon carbide in the field of new energy vehicles applications mainly include motor drive, on-board charger, DC/DC converter and so on. Silicon carbide devices of high efficiency, high power density and low heat generation and other characteristics, help to improve the performance of new energy vehicles and reduce energy consumption.
- Power electronics: Silicon carbide in the field of power electronics applications mainly include inverters, transformers, power modules and so on. Its high performance and reliability make it an ideal choice for power electronics systems.
Global Industry Situation
The world's leading silicon carbide companies include Infineon, STMicroelectronics, Rohm, and ON Semiconductor. These companies have already entered the production expansion stage, especially Infineon through the acquisition of Siltectra, the application of laser cold cutting technology, significantly improving the production efficiency and yield of silicon carbide wafers.
In China, although there are a number of companies such as Changdian Technology, Tongfu Microelectronics, Huatian Technology, etc. in the silicon carbide industry layout, but compared with foreign enterprises, there is still a certain gap, especially in the substrate, epitaxial, device design and manufacturing, packaging and other areas.
It is expected that by 2027, the silicon carbide-related market is expected to exceed $8 billion. High Bird Capital believes that the market size for silicon carbide devices will grow significantly as silicon carbide substrate prices decline in the long-term future.
Expert opinion
According to industry experts and researchers, the advantages of silicon carbide in specific applications are becoming more and more obvious. In the field of new energy vehicles, the value of power devices used in each vehicle is about $700 to $1,000, and the development of new energy vehicles is increasing the demand for power devices.
As a third-generation semiconductor material, silicon carbide wafers are rapidly changing the landscape of the power electronics industry.
