MONTREAL, Feb. 29, 2012 /ATR-Newswire/  ELECTRONICS.CA PUBLICATIONS, the electronics industry market research and knowledge network, announces the availability of a new report entitled "Inverter Technology Trends and Market Expectations".

Power electronics for electricity conversion is experiencing important growth. Semiconductor and power packaging developments, supply chain evolutions together with market forecasts are analyzed by Yole Développement in this report.

Because of continued strong interest in green energy, power electronics for electricity conversion is experiencing important growth. Starting with a total inverter market size of almost $44 billion in 2012, analysts estimate that it should reach more than $55 billion, with a high CAGR for applications such as EV/HEVs and renewable energies. The overall shipments of inverters for every power range should reach almost 28 million units. As a consequence, semiconductor power modules market – mostly driven by IGBT modules – will also reach important values: $1.64 billion in 2012 thanks to EV/HEV applications having a 29% CAGR from 2011 to 2016. Power modules will also be the place for the introduction of wide band gap semiconductor materials. Indeed, drivers such as form factor reduction, efficiency, reliability and weight will push compound semiconductors into the power modules, with a forecasted market size of $150 million by 2016 with a fast ramp up adoption from 2014.

Last but not least, passive components and connectivity solutions such as power connectors and busbars will also represent a huge market. In this report, researchers highlight the adoption of new passive components like super capacitors, developments around connectors as well as power signal and communication features. The general growth trend of power electronics will also drive more standard components such as resistors and in total, researchers estimate that the passive and connectivity components market should reach $2.7 Billion.

Semiconductor technological developments to enhance inverter performance

The heart of developments clearly comes from the evolution of semiconductor devices! These developments, mostly oriented by device performance also have an impact on other parts of modules and inverters: power packaging, system size reduction, performance, passive and connectivity solutions.

However, according to analysts, SiC and GaN-based switches are not ready yet to penetrate the market in high volume: indeed, technology still needs improvements and cost reduction. Analysts believe that mass adoption will not come before 2015. In addition,compound semiconductors will still compete with silicon based technologies such as (fast) IGBTs and Super Junction MOSFETs, specially driven by new inverter architectures like NPC at the power modules level.

Power packaging: important developments from application and material standpoints

In order to illustrate advantages of new semiconductor devices, this report will provide a clear understanding of power module packaging evolution. Today, semiconductor manufacturers, power module makers and system integrators are looking for: more reliable interconnections, materials which withstand higher working temperature, and ways to remove or reduce cooling system size. Indeed, due to the higher switching frequencies and heat coming from external sources (external motors, high ambient temperature) semiconductor dies are getting closer to the heat dissipation system. This also means die attach materials are being investigated in order to maintain strong connection between the DBC and the semiconductor device. Copper wire bonds or Aluminum ribbon bonds are preferred to standard Aluminum technologies (which still represent 90% of the market), since they also support harsh working conditions.

Another track for interconnection is foil-based solutions, which enable power module volume reduction, higher reliability to vibrations, connection of SMDs or other devices on top of the module and adoption of double sided cooling systems.

Of course, all these efforts are done because of entry of new semiconductor materials, but they are also done to fit with application requirements. In this market and technology report, researchers highlight the drivers’ priority by application: today, some cost driven applications such as motor drives or UPS are not ready to implement those new types of modules because added cost of it is too important for the overall system. In parallel, PV inverters, trains or electric and hybrid vehicles are the key drivers for power packaging research.

Out of the standard material suppliers for the electronics industry, three types of power electronics companies are likely to work on R&D for power packaging:

• Semiconductor device and module makers, such as Infineon, Toshiba or Mitsubishi
• Power module makers like Semikron, GE Global Research or Starpower
• Inverter manufacturers like DENSO, Yaskawa, Alstom or BYD.
  

Supply chain evolution: vertical integration in Asia; R&D services and diversification in Europe & North America
Power electronics now implies working with a broad spectrum of knowledge and know-how: mechanical, electrical, semiconductor, fluidics, hydraulics, connectors. Therefore, developments can be complicated and final products can be expensive.

As a consequence, researchers have observed and analyzed in this report the two main trends coming from the power electronics industry, which actually depends on the players locations:

• Japanese and Chinese players, especially from system makers tend to go downstream and master the manufacturing processes of each sub-system and component. In the case of Japanese companies, this tendency is mostly driven by cost reduction and absorption of intermediary margins, whereas Chinese companies want to access the technology and show some proof of quality

• On the other hand, EU and US players are more diversified, and acquisition of new competencies (such as Mersen, Rogers or Power Integration) or high-end R&D and prototyping services (APEI, Primes, IMEC, GE Global Research) is getting more common.

Details of the new report, table of contents and ordering information can be found on Electronics.ca Publications' website. View the report: Inverter Technology Trends and Market Expectations.