Chip is the secret pain of China's advanced manufacturing industry. In the context of the overall weakness of China's chip industry, how good can a chip made by an automobile manufacturer be? Whether technology works or not, patents have the most say. So, we consulted all the IGBT chip patents applied by BYD, and the analysis results came out-
IGBT, scientific name insulated gate bipolar transistor, is commonly known as "CPU" of power electronic devices. IGBT is the core device of energy conversion and transmission, and also the core technology of new energy vehicles, just like power batteries.
The design and manufacturing process of IGBT chip is very difficult. China's IGBT has been stuck for a long time, and the production capacity of high-end IGBT is seriously insufficient, and almost all of them rely on international giants such as Infineon. With the expansion of industrial scale, China new energy vehicles urgently need a robust IGBT "China Core".
◆ How many patents did BYD apply for?
In 2007, BYD submitted its first patent application for IGBT. By May 8, 2020, BYD had published 130 IGBT patent families in derwent World Patent Database, of which 23 1 patent records. This is the complete technical background of BYD IGBT chip at present, and 75% of the patents are distributed in Chinese mainland.
So, what is the level of 23 1 authorized patent in the international circle?
Fuji Electric, mitsubishi electric and Infineon have the most IGBT patents, but they all started earlier. In 1980s, Fuji Electric and mitsubishi electric developed IGBT technology. At present, the two companies hold 1733 and 1056 patent families respectively. Infineon only applied for the first IGBT patent at 1994, but the number increased rapidly. In recent years, the number of applications ranks first, and it has become the dominant IGBT chip in vehicle regulations.
BYD's IGBT research and development is more than 20 years behind Japan! The foundation is weak and you can only run fast. Where did I catch it?
◆ What is BYD's technical level?
BYD set up an IGBT team in 2005, and in 2008 acquired Ningbo Zhongwei IC which was insolvent and declared bankrupt. After this transaction, BYD began to independently develop IGBT chips.
20 15, BYD IGBT technology overcomes NPT technology, 20 18, and introduces IGBT4.0 technology for vehicle regulations. Based on the non-punch-through technology, the composite field termination layer is added, which further reduces the chip thickness.
In a patent published in September of 20 18, BYD proposed the technical scheme of deep trench gate; In two patents published in March and April of 20 19, the technical scheme of field termination layer (electric field cutoff) was put forward.
Chip, everyone loves to talk about which generation of technology, the higher the algebra, the higher the level. There is no certain law in the algebraic division of chip technology level. Compared with a widely adopted first-generation standard, we can find that BYD IGBT chip is still in the fourth generation as a whole, and in the past two years, we have tried to make a breakthrough in the fifth or even sixth generation technology.
Internationally, in 20 18, IGBT chips have entered the 7th generation technology of "micro-trench gate+field cutoff", and products from mitsubishi electric, Fuji Electric and Infineon have been introduced. BYD's technical iteration is still in a state of catching up.
◆ What does BYD focus on?
We look at the key areas of BYD IGBT in two ways.
The first is a simple patent index and derwent manual code sorting.
Derwent's manual code sequencing shows that in addition to the key MOS gate bipolar transistor, inorganic material deposition (metal oxide), processing of gate electrode, electrode and interconnection layer, semiconductor heat treatment (annealing, etc. ), heat dissipation (including chip and module heat dissipation, etc. ), silicon-based materials, electric vehicle control systems, etc. It is also the concentrated technical field of BYD IGBT patent layout.
The second method is patent text mining.
With the help of incoPat patent data platform, the patent data of BYD IGBT are clustered and the topographic map of key patents in technology research and development is drawn. The dark outline in the map represents BYD's patented technology research and development intensive area.
From this patent map, if you are technically hard-core, you can know that BYD's IGBT patents mainly include: IGBT structure, heat dissipation, IGBT chip, IGBT module, copper-clad ceramic substrate (DBC? Substrate), electronic control technology, etc.
In fact, module research and development was mainly done by BYD before 20 10, and it was still at a relatively low level. What has BYD been doing in the last three years?
In the past three years, BYD's most concerned technical topics are substrate manufacturing, IGBT chip packaging and heat dissipation. In addition, the company also pays attention to IGBT chip manufacturing technology, processing equipment, process control and electronic control system (including motor fault location). Among them, the current research focus of IGBT manufacturing technology is lithography, channel insulation layer and diffusion metal doping.
In addition, BYD has invested in the layout of the third-generation semiconductor material SiC (silicon carbide), with the vision of completely replacing silicon-based semiconductors with SiC-based semiconductors in 2023.
◆ What are the core patents of BYD?
The strength of patent can illustrate the importance of patent.
Knowledge tip: patent strength (patent? Strength) is the core patent evaluation index proposed by Innography company. More than 10 variables affecting patent value are integrated, including: the number of patent claims, the number of cited prior technical documents, the number of patent citations, the size of patent family, the time of patent application, patent age, patent litigation and so on. The range of patent strength is 0- 100. The higher the patent strength value, the more important the patent (which is the core patent of the company).
The strength analysis of all BYD patent families shows that there are 10 patent families with patent strength over 60. Yes, these are BYD's core IGBT technology patents and BYD's "inviolable" patent town. The protection contents of these patents involve over-current protection, over-temperature protection, electronic control system and fault detection, IGBT manufacturing technology and so on.
We have given the public numbers of these ten patents in a friendly way. Through WeChat official account, you can find the full text of the patent specification for study. We can only help you here.
◆ What is the international level?
Having said that (most people don't understand), what is the level of BYD IGBT chip? As an "underachiever", what lessons does BYD need to focus on compared with the international giants who have been entrenched in the IGBT field for many years?
Let's go directly to the picture first-
BYD, located in the third quadrant, has roughly the same competitive position as stmicroelectronics and Semiconductor, and is far behind leading enterprises such as Infineon in terms of technical competitiveness and operational strength.
Infineon, Hitachi and Denso are located in quadrant I, with the strongest comprehensive strength; Fuji and mitsubishi electric are in the IV quadrant, with strong technical competitiveness and slightly inferior operational strength; Renesas Electronics is in the II quadrant, which shows that it has strong business strength and slightly backward technical strength.
Where is the technology gap?
Using derwent's manual code, this paper analyzes the IGBT patent technology layout of BYD, Infineon, Hitachi, Denso, Fuji and mitsubishi electric. It can be seen that the patent layout of the other five companies is more comprehensive; 2. Inorganic materials such as MOS gate bipolar transistor, bipolar transistor and diode, bipolar transistor manufacturing, metal oxide deposition on substrate, bipolar transistor and gate electrode are the technical fields that six companies pay attention to.
It is worth noting that the number of patents of Infineon in the field of depositing metal oxides and gate electrodes has exceeded that of manufacturing, which shows that Infineon has more layouts in gate processing technology and is the most advanced among the five companies.
In addition, BYD's R&D layout in the field of insulated gate field effect transistor (MOSFET) is relatively weak at present. MOSFET is a low-power semiconductor, which can not work under high voltage and high current, which is in line with BYD's strategy of focusing on developing automotive IGBT chips.
◆ Knock on the blackboard? focus
Since the team was established in 2005, BYD has been making chips for 15 years. At present, it has gained a certain voice in the field of domestic automobile IGBT, and initially formed a patent layout system involving materials, heat dissipation, manufacturing technology, circuit protection, electronic control system and so on.
However, compared with leading IGBT giants such as Infineon, Fuji Electric and mitsubishi electric, BYD still has a long way to go, and the depth and breadth of research and development still need to be further improved.
Although BYD IGBT chips have been involved in the 5th and 6th generation technologies, it is still the 4th generation products in mass production. Mitsubishi electric launched the 6th generation products in 2009, and Fuji Electric began to supply the samples of the 7th generation products from 20 15. Infineon, Fuji Electric and mitsubishi electric all produced seven generations of products on 20 18. At the end of 20 18, BYD announced that the wafer could be as thin as 120μm, while Infineon's IGBT chip could be as thin as 40μ m at the minimum. ...
In terms of commercialization, BYD Semiconductor's market share in the global IGBT market is less than 2%. Even in the domestic market, the market share of BYD IGBT is only about 20%, and foreign-funded enterprises still hold the biggest cake. For example, Infineon supplied 630,000 sets of IGBT modules to China new energy vehicle market in 20 19, accounting for 58% of the market share.
Therefore, IGBT "domesticates" electricity, and BYD is also "domesticating" IGBT. The next question is whether BYD can seize the time to grab Infineon's cake after multi-channel capital blessing.
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