Yole stated in its latest report that charging for electric vehicles (EVs) presents a relatively new business opportunity for power electronics manufacturers. As the number of charging stations increases annually, this market will be sustainable, but soon there will be issues of replacement. As long as on-board chargers (OBCs) are enabled by default in cars, AC chargers will persist. As long as data center infrastructure doesn’t get robust integration (which may take 10-15 years), OBCs still have a place in this field.

By 2029, the total market value of DC EV charging systems will reach $23 billion. In 2023, the largest segment market was chargers ranging from 50 to 150 kW. However, there is a rapid growth in demand for high-power chargers, with a strong demand for power above 150 kW.

By 2029, the largest market value will reach $9.2 billion, associated with ultra-high-power (150 kW ≤ x ≤ 350 kW) chargers. Adopting 1,000 V chargers will simplify the choice for EV owners, enabling “plug and play” regardless of battery pack voltage (400V or 800V). Original equipment manufacturers with 800 V battery approaches for EVs will no longer worry about adapting batteries to 500V chargers. This will result in reductions in vehicle volume, weight, and cost.

In China, there is a significant synergy between local energy supply and public charging due to cheaper electricity. Utilizing the public grid makes procurement, trading, and optimizing electricity costs easier, giving them an edge over other Charge Point Operators (CPOs). They also have higher cash flows, providing greater flexibility during crises. Engie, Total Energies, Shell, and Enel have acquired several startup CPOs that potentially have good charging facilities. Most charger manufacturers have entered this market and are major players, such as ABB, Kempower, Delta (industrial converters), Kreisel (battery business), Bosch, BorgWarner (Tier 1 companies), Tesla, NIO, and XPeng Motors (automobile manufacturers). The charging infrastructure market remains fragmented, with rankings of major players changing rapidly.

The primary trend for EV DC chargers is increasing the maximum charger voltage from 500V to 1,000V to accommodate charging for 400V and 800V batteries and increasing power to over 350kW for ultra-fast charging. Chargers with a nominal power rating of 350 kW and above far exceed the battery charging capacity of current electric vehicles. These ultra-fast chargers are increasingly designed with dynamic power allocation features to charge two or more vehicles simultaneously. As long as V2G hasn’t taken off, bidirectional chargers won’t become mainstream.

Silicon transistors, namely discrete IGBTs and MOSFETs, are the most common devices in electric vehicle DC chargers. Smaller chargers with smaller footprints, higher thermal performance (simpler, cheaper cooling systems), and a breakdown voltage of 1,200V are driving factors for SiC MOSFET devices. The combination of these parameters and the return on investment (in high utilization charging stations) has led to more adoption of SiC. Ultra-fast chargers are adopting liquid cooling. Even in residential areas or enclosed spaces where noise may be critical, interest in this technology is growing, even with lower power.

RF GaN, a new opportunity

Although the demand in the 5G telecommunications infrastructure sector was sluggish in 2023, RF GaN has been steadily surpassing LDMOS, albeit offset by the continuous growth in the defense and satellite communication markets. It is anticipated that the RF GaN market will rebound slowly in 2024, driven by telecommunications infrastructure, defense, and satellite communication applications, exceeding $2 billion by 2029. MACOM’s recent acquisitions of OMMIC and Wolfspeed’s RF business not only strengthened its market share but also reshaped the RF GaN industry landscape, positioning Wolfspeed as a pure SiC wafer and GaN-on-SiC epitaxial supplier, influencing the open epitaxial market.

For years, RF GaN has been utilized in 4G base stations due to its performance in power amplifier stages. Simultaneously, the demand for RF GaN in defense applications continues to expand for military radars and electronic warfare systems. The downward trend of RF GaN in 2021 was reversed in 2022 due to factors such as the US ban on Huawei, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and slowed base station deployments. Manufacturers responded by accelerating the adoption of GaN in their systems to meet the recovery of 5G deployments. The recent introduction of GaN into telecommunications infrastructure is expected to directly impact the industry starting in 2023, potentially bringing new market opportunities.

The article is selected from the WeChat official account of Semilnsights.com (ID: icbank) and part of Yole.