ATR-Newswire (Press Release) - Feb 21, 2013 - ELECTRONICS.CA PUBLICATIONS, the electronics industry market research and knowledge network, announces the availability of a new report entitled "Inverter Market Trends for 2013 - 2020 and Major Technology Changes ".  There is significant growth in the inverter market, which reached $45 billion in 2012 for motion and conversion. Energy related topics have become more and more important in 2012 – vehicle electrification, renewable energies, electricity transportation, – and as a direct result, the  power electronics market has increased.  This growth is driven by high volume and cost pressure applications such as EV/HEV,  and by high added-value markets like renewable energies and rail traction.

In this report, we update and present market forecasts until 2020. We estimate the inverter market to be $45 billion in 2012 and to reach $71 billion by 2020. A total of more than 28 million units were shipped in 2012 and we estimate that will grow to 80 million units in 2020.

Thus, the main components of inverter, passive and semiconductor modules (that we will find in power stacks) represent enticing industries. The power module market was $1.9 billion in 2012 and passive components achieved a market size of more than $4 billion, including capacitors, resistors, connectors, busbars and - newly added in this updated report  - magnetic components (inductors and transformers).

As expected, wide band gap semiconductor devices have also started to penetrate those high-end market segments: SiC is present in PV inverters – a total market size of $43 million primarily driven by diodes in micro-inverters, but also by JFETs – and GaN which should be introduced in 2013.

SEMICONDUCTOR TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS CONTINUE TO EVOLVE AND SHARPEN INVERTER PERFORMANCE

Our 2012 investigation confirmed that semiconductor improvements enabled more efficient conversion, lighter systems and more reliable end-products. IGBTs have improved (higher current density, thinner and faster), as have SiC and GaN-based devices. GaN could be delayed in its market introduction, but SiC is already here and several companies showed SiC power module capabilities all last year. In this report, we updated our technology roadmaps for materials and devices.

Details of the new report, table of contents and ordering information can be found on Electronics.ca Publications' web site.  View the report: "Inverter Market Trends for 2013 - 2020 and Major Technology Changes".