1、 Third generation semiconductor Gan: widely used in radio frequency, power supply and Optoelectronics
The first generation semiconductor materials mainly refer to silicon (SI) and germanium (GE) element semiconductors.
The second generation of semiconductor materials refer to compound semiconductor materials, such as gallium arsenide (GaAs), indium antimonide (InSb), indium phosphide (INP), and ternary compound semiconductor materials, such as aluminum gallium arsenide (gaasal), phosphorus gallium arsenide (GaAsP), etc. There are also some solid solution semiconductor materials, such as silicon germanium (Ge Si), gallium arsenide gallium phosphide (GaAs gap), etc; Glass semiconductor (also known as amorphous semiconductor) materials, such as amorphous silicon, glass oxide semiconductor, etc; Organic semiconductor materials, such as phthalocyanine, copper phthalocyanine, polyacrylonitrile, etc.
The third generation semiconductor materials are mainly semiconductor materials with wide band gap (eg>2.3ev) represented by silicon carbide (SIC), gallium nitride (GAN), zinc oxide (ZnO), diamond and aluminum nitride (AlN).
Compared with the first and second generation semiconductor materials, the third generation semiconductor materials have wider band gap, higher breakdown electric field, higher thermal conductivity, higher electron saturation velocity and higher radiation resistance, which are more suitable for making high-temperature, high-frequency, radiation resistant and high-power devices.
1.2 GaN has obvious advantages, and 5g era has rich application scenarios
Gallium nitride (GAN) is an extremely stable compound, hard and high melting point material with a melting point of 1700 ℃. Gan has excellent breakdown ability, higher electron density and velocity, and higher operating temperature. Gan has a wide energy gap of 3.4ev, and has the advantages of low on loss and high current density.
Gallium nitride is usually used in microwave, RF, power electronics and optoelectronics. Specifically, the microwave RF direction includes 5g communication, radar early warning, satellite communication and other applications; Power electronics includes smart grid, high-speed rail transit, new energy vehicles, consumer electronics and other applications; Optoelectronic direction includes LED, laser, photodetector and other applications.
2、 RF application analysis
2.1 GaN has unique advantages in high temperature, high frequency and high power RF Applications
Since the first commercial products appeared 20 years ago, GaN has become an important competitor of LDMOS and GaAs in RF power applications. Its performance and reliability have been continuously improved and its cost has been continuously reduced. Gan on SiC, which currently dominates the RF Gan market, has broken through the 4G LTE wireless infrastructure market and is expected to be deployed in the RRH (remote radio head) of the 5g sub-6ghz implementation scheme.
Compared with 4G systems, 5g mmimo has more transceivers and antenna units, and uses beamforming signal processing to transfer RF energy to users. The mmimo system can connect 192 antenna units to 64 transmit / receive (TRX) FEMS. These TRX FEMS have 16 transceiver RFICs and 4 digital front ends (DfES). Compared with 4 transceivers in a typical LTE 4T MIMO, the digital signal processing performance can be improved by 16 times. Under 5g MIMO design, the sharp increase of signal processing hardware has greatly affected the system size. The power consumption of signal processing is also approaching the power consumption of on-board power amplifier. In some cases, it has even exceeded the power consumption of on-board power amplifier.
The mmimo design helps to reduce the steps required for analog-to-digital and digital to analog conversion in the traditional transceiver architecture, thereby reducing the size and weight of 5g antennas. Compared with LDMOS devices, silicon-based Gan provides good broadband performance, excellent power density and efficiency, can meet strict thermal specifications, and saves valuable PCB space for tightly integrated MIMO antenna arrays.
Gan is very suitable for the high frequency and wide bandwidth required in the millimeter wave field, and can meet the requirements of performance and small size. Applications using the mmwave band will require highly directional beamforming technology, which means that the RF subsystem will require a large number of active components to drive a relatively compact aperture. Gan is very suitable for these applications because the powerful performance of small-size packages is one of the most prominent features of GaN.
In terms of high power amplifier, LDMOS technology has only made little progress in high RF power due to its low frequency limitation. GaAs technology can work above 100GHz, but its low thermal conductivity and operating voltage limit its output power level. 50V gan/sic technology can provide hundreds of watts of output power at high frequency, and can provide the robustness and reliability required by the radar system. HV gan/sic can achieve higher power while significantly reducing the number of RF power transistors, system complexity and total cost.
2.2 the scale of Gan RF market will be about 2billion US dollars by 2024, and the CAGR will reach 21%
Gan pays more attention to high-power and high-frequency scenarios in the RF market. Gan has been widely used in RF industry because of its high power output and small area at high frequency. With the arrival of 5g, GaN has found a place in sub-6ghz macro base stations and millimeter wave (above 24GHz) small base stations. The Gan RF market will grow from US $645million in 2018 to about US $2billion in 2024, which is mainly driven by the application of telecommunications infrastructure and national defense. Satellite communication, wired broadband and RF power have also made some contributions.
With the implementation of the new GaN based active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar system, the GaN based military radar is expected to dominate the Gan military market, increasing from US $270Million in 2018 to US $977million in 2024, with a CAGR of 23.91%, which has great growth potential. The market size of Gan wireless infrastructure will increase from US $304 million in 2018 to US $752million in 2024, with a CAGR of 16.3%. The scale of Gan wired broadband market increased from US $15.5 million in 2018 to US $65million in 2024, with a CAGR of 26.99%. The market scale of Gan RF power has increased from US $2million in 2018 to US $104.6 million in 2024, with a CAGR of 93.38%, which has great room for growth.
In satellite communications requiring high frequency and high power output, it is expected that Gan will gradually replace GaAs solutions. In the CATV and civil radar markets, the cost of Gan is still higher than that of LDMOS or GaAs, but its added value is obvious. For the huge consumer RF power transmission market representing Gan, Gan on Si can provide a more cost-effective solution.
2.3 Gan RF Market: dominated by the United States and Japan, followed by Europe and China
According to yole statistics, more than 3750 patents in the world in 2019 can be divided into more than 1700 patent families. These patents cover RF Gan epitaxy, RF semiconductor devices, integrated circuits and packaging. Cree (wolfspeed) has the strongest patent strength and is in a leading position in the competition for GaN HEMT patents for RF applications, especially in the Gan on SiC technology, far ahead of its main patent competitors Sumitomo Electric and Fujitsu. Intel and MACOM are currently the most active RF Gan patent applicants, focusing on GaN on Si technology. New entrants in the field of Gan RF HEMT related patents are mainly Chinese manufacturers, such as hiwafer, San'an integration and Huajin Chuangwei.
3、 Application analysis of power electronics: promote fast charging and automotive electronics to enter the era of small volume and high efficiency
3.1 GaN has various application scenarios in automotive electronics
Gan technology is expected to significantly improve applications such as power management, power generation and power output. In 2005, the power electronics sector managed about 30% of energy, which is expected to reach 80% by 2030. This is equivalent to saving more than 3billion kilowatt hours of electricity, which can support more than 300000 households for one year. From smart phone chargers to data centers, all devices that receive power directly from the grid can benefit from Gan technology, thereby improving the efficiency and scale of power management systems.
Due to the difference of material characteristics, SiC has advantages in high-voltage and high-power applications higher than 1200V, while Gan devices are more suitable for high-frequency applications of 40-1200v, especially in applications below 600v/3kw. Therefore, Gan can challenge the position of traditional MOSFET or IGBT devices in micro inverter, server, motor drive, ups and other fields. Gan makes power products lighter and more efficient.
3.2 Gan can provide a better choice for the next generation charger Market
Gan will replace silicon in many applications in the next few years. Among them, fast charging is the first application that can be mass produced. At about 600 volts, Gan performs better than silicon in chip area, circuit efficiency and switching frequency. Therefore, Gan can be used to replace silicon in wall charger. The screen of 5g smart phones is getting larger and larger, which corresponds to the increasing demand for mobile phone battery life, which means the increase of battery capacity. Gan fast charging technology can solve the problem of charging time caused by large batteries.
At very high voltage, temperature and switching frequency, GaN has superior performance compared with silicon, which can significantly improve energy efficiency. Power Gan appeared in the after-sales market in the middle and late 2018, mainly 24 to 65 watt chargers of Anker, aukey and ravpower.
After years of academic research on discrete Gan in the 1990s and integrated Gan in the 2000s, Navitas' ganfast source IC has become a recognized and commercially attractive next-generation solution in the industry. It can be used to design smaller, lighter and faster chargers and power adapters. The single bridge and half bridge ganfast power IC is a 650V silicon-based Gan FET monolithic integrated by driver and logic, and is packaged in a quad flat leadless (QFN) package. Ganfast technology allows switching frequencies up to 10 MHz, allowing the use of smaller, lighter passive components. In addition, parasitic inductance limits the switching speed of Si and earlier discrete Gan circuits, while integration can minimize delay and eliminate parasitic inductance.
3.3 the Gan power market will be about USD 350million by 2024, and the CAGR will reach 85%
According to yole's prediction, driven by the application of consumer fast charger, the market scale of Gan power supply will exceed 350million US dollars by 2024, with a CAGR of 85%, which has great room for growth. In addition, Gan is expected to enter the automotive, industrial and telecom power applications. From the production side, Gan power semiconductors have begun to ship in batches, but their prices are still expensive. Manufacturing cost is the main obstacle to market growth, because Gan still mainly uses 6-inch and below wafers to produce. Once the cost can be reduced to a certain threshold, the market will erupt.
Based on the fierce competition of mobile phone fast charging, Chinese mobile phone manufacturers such as oppo, vivo and Xiaomi will drive the rapid growth of Gan power market. Gan power devices have been dominated by pure Gan start-ups such as EPC, Gan systems, transphorm and Navitas. Their products are mainly manufactured by TSMC, episil or x-fab. Among the emerging generation factories in China, San'an integrated and Hewei Huaxin have the ability to mass produce Gan power devices
4、 Application analysis in optoelectronic field
4.1 Gan is the basic material of blue LED and has important applications in micro led and UV laser
In 1993, Xiuer Nakamura of Nichia company introduced the first high brightness GaN Blue LED, which solved the problem of the lack of efficient blue light since the advent of LED in 1962. In 1996, it was the first time to coat yellow phosphor on blue led to realize white light emission, opening a new era of LED white light lighting.
Micro LED is a new generation of display technology. Compared with the existing OLED technology, micro LED has higher brightness, better luminous efficiency, but lower power consumption. Micro LED display technology can thin film, miniaturize and array the LED structure design, and the size is only about 1~100 μ M level, but the accuracy can reach 10000 times that of traditional LED. In addition, micro LEDs are similar to OLEDs in display characteristics. They do not need a backlight and can self emit light. The only difference is that OLEDs are self emitting organic materials. At present, OLEDs are favored by major manufacturers because they are superior to TFTLCD in terms of reaction time, viewing angle, flexibility, color rendering and energy consumption. However, micro LEDs are easier to accurately adjust color, and have longer luminous life and higher brightness. Micro LED is expected to become another technology to promote display quality after OLED.
Commercial silicon round crystals of 12 inches and above have been fully mature. With the introduction of high uniformity MOCVD epitaxial large cavity, there is no essential difficulty in upgrading silicon substrate LED epitaxy to a larger round crystal size. Therefore, the characteristics of GaN based technology on silicon substrate are the natural choice for manufacturing micro LED chips.
Gallium nitride (GAN) is a good material for preparing ultraviolet devices because of its high-frequency characteristics. Ultraviolet photoelectric chips have a wide range of military and civil dual-use prospects. In the military field, typical military applications include: fire suppression and explosion suppression system (ground tanks, armored vehicles, ships and aircraft), UV guidance, UV warning, UV communication, UV search and rescue positioning, aircraft landing (land) guidance, space detection, nuclear radiation and biological warfare agent monitoring, explosives detection, etc. In the civil field, typical applications include: flame detection, corona discharge detection, medical monitoring and diagnosis, water quality monitoring, atmospheric monitoring, criminal biological detection, etc. It can be seen that Gan is widely used in the fields of Optoelectronics and microelectronics. Among them, GaN based UV laser has important application value in the fields of UV curing and UV sterilization, and is also an international research hotspot.
4.2 Gan Optoelectronics Market is growing rapidly, and the market scale increment can be expected
According to ledinside's analysis, the CAGR of LED lighting market scale from 2018 to 2023 is 6%. In the new era of the Internet of things and 5g, the penetration rate of intelligent products has increased more rapidly, and the business opportunity of smart home lighting is about to break out. In addition, the market output value of micro led and mini LED is expected to reach US $1.38 billion in 2022. The next generation Mini LED backlight technology will be the development focus of various manufacturers. By 2023, the market scale of mini LED is expected to reach 1billion US dollars. Among them, the display application has the fastest growth rate, and CAGR is expected to exceed 50% from 2018 to 2023.
According to the 2019 deep UV LED application market report released by ledinside, the global UV LED market scale in 2018 reached 299million US dollars. It is estimated that the market scale will reach 991million US dollars by 2023, and the CAGR will reach 27% in 2018-2023. The broad development prospect of UV LED is attracting more and more manufacturers to enter.
The deep ultraviolet light emitting diode (LED) based on gallium nitride semiconductor is the mainstream development direction of ultraviolet disinfection light source. Its light source has small volume, high efficiency and long service life. Only the chip module the size of the thumb cap can emit ultraviolet light stronger than the mercury lamp. Because it has all the potential advantages of LED cold light source, deep UV LED is recognized as a green energy-saving and environmental protection product to replace UV mercury lamp in the future. However, the technical threshold of deep UV LED is very high. At present, it is still in the development stage and needs to be improved in terms of optical power, optical efficiency, service life and cost. In recent years, the technical level and chip performance of deep UV LED have made rapid progress. It has been applied in batch in some high-end fields and is expected to be more widely used in the future.
At present, Japanese and Korean manufacturers are still the main high-end deep UV LED products in the market. However, more and more domestic semiconductor companies have begun to pay attention to the deep UV industry and made in-depth layout. For example, Qingdao Jiesheng (Yuanrong Optoelectronics), which has laid out the industrial chain of deep UV chip packaging module, San'an optoelectronics, Hubei deep UV, Zhongke Lu'an, Huacan optoelectronics, Hongli Bingyi of deep UV LED chips, and gallium sensitive optoelectronics of high-performance UV sensing chips. At present, gallium sensitive optoelectronics is the only company with UV sensing chip technology in China. The high-end gallium nitride and silicon carbide UV sensing chips developed by gallium sensitive optoelectronics have been put into mass production and have been applied in the field of UV purification such as drinking water, air, food, clothing and medical devices.
