Dr. Huang Xing, General Manager of PN JUNCTION Semiconductor in Hangzhou, China, recently stated in an exclusive interview with China Semiconductor Net: "In the next three years, there will be significant growth opportunities for silicon carbide in the fields of electric vehicles, energy storage, and photovoltaics worldwide. The annual compound growth rate for photovoltaic energy storage is over 33%, and electric vehicles are growing at an annual rate of 40%."
He also mentioned that China has a large market for energy storage due to the instability of photovoltaic power generation, which requires sufficient energy storage for grid integration. Recently, the country has introduced a series of policies and regulations, such as requiring new buildings with a rooftop area exceeding 1,000 square meters in places like Zhejiang Haiyan and Hefei to install photovoltaics. This presents a significant development opportunity for the photovoltaic energy storage industry.
Figure1: Dr. Huangxing General Manager of
Currently, the biggest challenge in the Chinese silicon carbide industry is the insufficient capacity of the supply chain. It will take at least two years for the capacity from previous investments to be fully utilized and alleviate the shortage of silicon carbide chips. Dr. Huang Xing stated, "The scarcity of silicon carbide chip supply will only be alleviated after at least two years."
PN JUNCTION Semiconductor has demonstrated its confidence in the future prospects of the silicon carbide market through concrete actions. Dr. Huang Xing said, "Our solution to address the pain points in this industry is to expand production. This year, PN JUNCTION Semiconductor has increased its production capacity fivefold at the X-Fab foundry, and we will actively seek alternative capacity solutions domestically in the future."
Currently, PN JUNCTION Semiconductor's main product is silicon carbide MOSFET, which has the smallest cell size among all planar silicon carbide MOSFETs globally, averaging 20% smaller than its competitors. Due to this advantage, the company's Qgd * Rdson is the smallest among similar products. These products are mainly used in on-board chargers (OBC) for vehicles and energy storage charging stations, and they have already entered mass production and delivery to leading domestic and European automotive companies. The shipment volume in 2022 reached 3.6 million units, with a lead time of around 120 days or approximately 18 weeks, and the minimum order quantity is 12,000 units.
Figure2: Sic MOSFET-P3M06025K3
Currently, PN JUNCTION Semiconductor's silicon carbide MOSFET products have already entered mass production and delivery to top automotive customers. The company's current primary target markets are focused on automotive and energy storage, with future expansion into the photovoltaic field based on automotive partnerships. The application of silicon carbide MOSFETs in the photovoltaic field is slightly delayed compared to automotive applications.
Dr. Huang Xing stated, "We will replicate successful application cases in other customers and markets, led by our top customers. Currently, we have established more than ten cooperative agents domestically and internationally, with major domestic agents including Zengniqiang and Shiqiang Advanced."
PN JUNCTION's silicon carbide MOSFET products have been applied in leading industrial power supply factories and car manufacturers in Europe, which means there are successful samples to replicate for overseas buyers. The company also has an overseas team to provide support, so overseas customers can confidently choose PN JUNCTION.
Established in September 2018, PN JUNCTION Semiconductor (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd. is a leading third-generation semiconductor power device supplier in China. It is also one of the main members of the International Electrotechnical Commission's JC-70 meeting, participating in the formulation of international standards for wide bandgap semiconductor power devices.
Founder Dr. Huang Xing has been focusing on the design and development of silicon carbide and gallium nitride power devices since 2009, under the guidance of IGBT inventor B. Jayant Baliga and thyristor inventor Alex Huang. With over 10 years of deep involvement in the power device field, Dr. Huang has released multiple high-voltage silicon carbide products and holds multiple invention patents. In just three years after the establishment of PN JUNCTION, the company has achieved mass production of multiple high-voltage MOSFET products, maintaining a leading position in the industry.
PN JUNCTION Semiconductor's major milestones in development include:
- March 2019: Release of the first compatible drive 650V GaN power device; completion of Gen3 technology 1200V SiC MOSFET, filling the domestic gap; development and mass production of 650V SiC SBD in October, focusing on servers and data centers.
- January 2020: Initial development and verification of 650V and 1700V industrial-grade MOSFET products; completion of the development and mass production of 1200V SiC SBD in November, targeting photovoltaics and charging stations.
- February 2021: Initial development and verification of 1200V high-current automotive-grade MOSFET products; completion of 1200V 62mm SiC.
Silicon carbide as the representative of the third generation of semiconductor devices is a revolutionary achievement in the field of power electronics, PN Junction has laid out the intellectual property rights of 70 + items, of which 27 have been authorized, and the other mastered silicon carbide and gallium nitride of the full set of process menus, screening and testing programs, and other important technical secrets.
Figure3: Technician are working
The company's technical team project has leading product technology and continuous R & D capabilities, team members have the product technology leading the domestic 3-5 years, of which the silicon carbide MOSFET technology to fill the domestic blank. The technical team itself has the technical knowledge reserve, can according to the market customer demand to complete the iterative design and customized development of the product, the sales team has accurate customer resources and complete market sales channels.
The sales team members already have fully mastered the domestic and Asia-Pacific region customer resources, including international leading competitors' customer resources, and another from the channel general agent, regional distributors to the end customer to complete the promotion channel. The operation team has mass production manufacturing experience and perfect organizational structure resume, the project operation team are from the listed peer companies, and similar companies at home and abroad for many years, the core staff has more than 10 years of semiconductor industry work and management experience. The core personnel have more than 10 years of work and management experience in the semiconductor industry. They have a wide range of contacts and resources in the industry, and there are potential personnel reserves.
Dr. Huang Xing pointed out that Pioneer aims to become a leading semiconductor company with high efficiency and reliability, and is committed to innovating and striving for global green energy, as well as creating an efficient and sustainable world. In the next 3 years, Pioneer will take the new product development roadmap to continuously reduce the size of the meta-cells and increase the trench mobility, and to build a complete automotive reliability screening and verification platform to bring a good service experience to our customers.
