Among the cost components of new energy vehicles, the largest is of course the power battery, and the second highest is IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor). As one of the "dual-cores" with the same name as power battery cells, IGBT, which accounts for about 5% of the vehicle cost, is becoming more and more important.
How important can IGBT be? That is, it can directly control the conversion between DC and AC power of the drive system and determine the core indicators such as torque and maximum output power of the electric vehicle, which can be described as "pulling one hair and moving the whole body".
Therefore, the BYD IGBT project with a total investment of 654.38 billion yuan was officially started in Changsha recently, which is undoubtedly very eye-catching. It is reported that the project has designed a production line with an annual output of 250,000 8-inch wafers, which can meet the production demand of 500,000 new energy vehicles every year.
At present, the production capacity of BYD IGBT chip wafer has reached 50,000 pieces/month, and it is estimated that it will reach 65,438+10,000 pieces/month in 2002/kloc-0, and it can supply10.2 million new energy vehicles a year, which is equivalent to the total sales of new energy vehicles in 20 19 years.
However, what we are concerned about is, to what extent has BYD's IGBT technology reached? Where is BYD in the whole IGBT pattern?
break up a monopoly
As a power semiconductor, IGBT is widely used, from household appliances to strategic industries such as airplanes, ships, transportation and power grids. In addition, IGBT is also the key support project of the national "02 Special Project", which completely replaces the traditional power MOSFET and is called the "CPU" of the power electronics industry.
In the new energy field, the application of IGBT is also very important. For example, in the "three electricity" aspect of electric vehicles, Tesla's Model S adopts three-phase asynchronous drive motor, in which each phase needs to use 28 plastic IGBT chips for drive control, and the three phases need to use 84 IGBT chips. If you calculate the total amount, you can see the huge demand. In addition, the core components of the charging pile also need IGBT chips.
But for a long time, it has been monopolized by a few IDM (integrated device manufacturers), such as Infineon, Fuji Electric, Mitsubishi and other foreign-funded enterprises.
The data shows that Infineon supplied 628,000 sets of IGBT modules to the domestic electric passenger car market during the period of 2065,438+09, accounting for 58% of the market share. BYD supplied194,000 sets, accounting for 18% of the market. It can be said that without BYD, the situation of domestic enterprises' "stuck neck" in the IGBT chip market of China Automobile Regulatory Commission cannot be alleviated. This is a fact.
It is gratifying that BYD has broken the monopoly of international giants. However, it is worth noting that if the self-supply ratio of BYD IGBT is about 70% (or above) in 20 19, that is, it is close to150,000 sets, and the external supply is more than 40,000 sets, BYD is still quite conservative.
Therefore, on April 14, BYD announced that by integrating the company's semiconductor business, an independent "BYD Semiconductor Co., Ltd." was established to expand the business volume of IGBT and enhance its business prospects. According to CICC's forecast, the market value of BYD Semiconductor will reach 30 billion yuan after the spin-off, and undoubtedly only external IGBT can bring such benefits.
According to the statistics of 20 18, in a pure electric vehicle, IGBT accounts for about half of the cost of the drive motor system, and the drive motor system accounts for 15~20% of the vehicle cost, that is to say, IGBT accounts for 7~ 10% of the vehicle cost. According to the report of CITIC Securities, IGBT accounts for about 2,500 ~ 3,500 yuan in the current cost of plug-in hybrid vehicles, while IGBT bicycles for pure electric vehicles above Class A cost 2,000 ~ 4,000 yuan, and luxury cars are relatively high, above 5,000 yuan.
In addition, CITIC Securities believes that the high growth of global electric vehicles (especially vehicles with Class A or above) will promote a large demand for IGBT. The industry space is about 9.7 billion yuan in 2020, and it is expected to reach 37 billion yuan in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of over 30%. Therefore, if BYD's IGBT sales expand, the income will definitely be considerable.
It is reported that BYD's next plan is to make the external supply ratio of IGBT strive to exceed 50%. Before BYD fought alone, it showed the technical weakness of its own brand in key parts, and now the situation has eased. However, if we look at the development trend of international IGBT technology, BYD has to speed up its pace.
Mode of competition
Previously, BYD had adopted IGBT independently developed on Qin and Tang models, but it was not announced for the first time until 2065438+September 2008. Judging from the number of patents, as of 20 18 and 1 1, BYD has applied for 175 IGBT-related patents in this field, including 1 14 granted patents.
Up to now, the cumulative load of BYD Auto IGBT has exceeded 600,000 vehicles. If you just read BYD's report, you will feel proud. However, looking around, BYD is facing strong players.
Judging from the application voltage of IGBT, the automobile is mainly between 600 V-1200 V. Infineon has an overwhelming advantage in this range. Although Ansenmei also has a market in the field of 600V- 1200V, it is mainly in the off-board field. Mitsubishi and Fuji Electric have carved up the Japanese market, and all the IGBT used in Toyota hybrid power are completed internally, and they have their own complete IGBT production supply chain.
In addition to these giants, according to the latest report of IHS Markit, Starr Semiconductor (603290), a China company, ranked 8th in the global market share of IGBT components in 20 18, and the only one that entered the world ranking TOP 10, has also become a strong competitor of BYD.
According to Starr Semiconductor's annual report, which has just been on the market for two months, the vehicle-level IGBT modules it produced last year have been matched with more than 20 car companies, with a total of more than 1.6 million new energy vehicles (and according to the statistics of NE era, Starr supplied 1.7, 1.29 sets of IGBT modules in 2065). If it is used in industrial control and power supply industries, frequency conversion,
Moreover, in terms of IGBT technical strength, BYD has developed to IGBT 4.0 (equivalent to the fifth generation in the world), while Starr Semiconductor has developed to the sixth generation. The company's 650V/750V IGBT chip based on the sixth generation trench field cutoff technology and its supporting fast recovery diode chip have been applied to the new energy automobile industry.
Globally, IGBT has developed to 7.5 generations, and mitsubishi electric 20 12 launched the seventh generation. Mitsubishi electric's current level can be regarded as 7.5 generations, while BYD released IGBT 4.0 technology on 20 18 and 12, so the gap is still very big.
How big is the gap?
However, it is recognized that IGBT technology is now close to the peak. Nowadays, science and technology are changing with each passing day. Outside the IGBT battlefield, the next generation will compete for SiC technology. Toyota once said, "SiC is as important as gasoline engine."
In fact, silicon carbide (SiC) is a widely used old industrial material, which has been mass-produced in 1893. As the third generation semiconductor material, it has great development potential. Moreover, SiC technology has been fully popularized in Japan, and whether it is a big factory like Mitsubishi or a small factory like Fuji Electric and Rohm, it has the ability to easily manufacture SiC components.
In view of the importance of SiC, Toyota's strategy is completely independent production. In fact, Toyota has been studying SiC since 1980s, leading the world for 30 years. By 20 14, Toyota has been able to trial-produce key SiC substrates.
Incidentally, SiC substrate is the key. Infineon, which lags behind many Japanese companies, decided to acquire the power supply and RF department ("Wolfspeed") of Cree Group in July 20 16, and the core is SiC substrate technology. However, it was ultimately rejected by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) for reasons related to national security.
At present, BYD has also developed SiC MOSFET. It is estimated that by 2023, BYD will completely replace silicon-based semiconductors with SiC-based semiconductors. In this case, the vehicle performance can be improved by 65,438+00% on the existing basis. Besides improving the driving efficiency, the volume of SiC MOSFET can be reduced by 70~80%, which is also recognized by the industry. SiC is the most effective technology to improve the efficiency of new energy vehicles.
Of course, the promotion of optical chips alone is not enough, and the whole industrial chain of integrated materials (high purity silicon carbide powder), single crystals, epitaxy, chips, packaging and other SiC-based semiconductors should also be followed up to further reduce the manufacturing cost of SiC devices and accelerate their application in the field of electric vehicles.
Therefore, technically, BYD still has a long way to go. In addition, compared with Starr's global business, BYD IGBT's overseas business has yet to be developed. However, in comparison, BYD has gained certain advantages among domestic independent brands, just like Huawei's ultimate weapon of holding chips. In the face of unprecedented changes in the automobile industry, it is undoubtedly a fact that technology-driven will reconstruct the industry structure.
Text/Wang Xiaoxi
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