Power semiconductor market will be worth US$1 billion next year, research firm Omdia said.
Silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) power semiconductor market projections will continue on the increase by more than 10% annually for the next decade and will pass US$5 billion by 2029, the firm said.
SiC and GaN power semiconductor market was US$571 million in 2018. It is expected to reach US$854 million by the end of 2020, Omdia said.
End products with GaN transistors and system ICs are in mass production, including USB type C power adapters and chargers for fast charging of cell phones and notebook computers. GaN crystal growth on standard silicon wafers offers “potentially unlimited production capacity,” the research firm also noted.
SiC metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETS) are very popular with manufacturers, and declining prices will prompt faster adoption of them, said Richard Eden, senior principal analyst for power semiconductors at Omdia.
By contrast GaN power transistors and GaN system integrated circuits have only come to market recently. GaN has higher cost-reduction potential than SiC, he said. That’s possible because GaN power devices can be grown on either silicon or sapphire substrates, which are less expensive than SiC.
Sales of GaN ICs from Power Integrations, Texas Instruments and Navitas Semiconductor are forecast to rise faster than GaN transistors, Eden said.
The analysts also said SiC and GaN power devices have been subjected to trillions of house of device field experience without any unexpected reliability problems with them __ they were usually better than silicon.
