New chips for electric cars and military power technologies. Funtil 2030 is 30% annual growth in the sector is expected
If China and the United States invest in energy-saving chips, so does Germany adopts the same strategy massively. New technologies consume a lot of energy and the sector has exploded, to the point that the Aixtron innovation center has started a sort of small local construction boom, investing 100 million euros in its headquarters in Herzogenrath, near Aachen. The sector is so economically strong that the company does not receive any government subsidies for its operations. This is because Aixtron benefits, like no other German company, from the boom in energy-saving chips made from the innovative materials silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN).
The so-called compound semiconductors in SiC or GaNin whose production Aixtron specializes, guarantee a leap in quality. For decades, silicon has dominated the world of transistors. Then the two semiconductor devices became established, as transistor solutions, powered by gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC). SiC materials have a higher thermal conductivity than silicon. This characteristic enables them to conduct high voltages for high power applications, offering greater power density, durability and reliability. In some ways similar to SiC, GaN, with three times the electron mobility of SiC, is suitable for higher switching frequency operations.
This new type of technology is used from hybrid and electric vehicles to industrial power supplies, from photovoltaic systems to military power electronics.
“We see our markets recording double-digit growth rates,” he told the German business daily Handelsblatt general manager Felix Grawert.
Aixtron runs along the global trend. China, the United States and Europe want to become independent in these strategic areas and on the one hand they are building technological related industries capable of guaranteeing constant development in the sector, on the other the new materials used are significantly more powerful than previous generations and change the approach to technology.
“In the past everything was optimized for cost. Now we are creating a much more complex supply chain,” said James Hanford of asset manager Comgest, a German investment firm. “THE Chip machine manufacturers are the clear winners of this trend.”
The US group Wolfspeedper has announced the creation of a SiC factory in the German state of Saarland. Infineon, Germany’s largest chipmaker wants to build the world’s largest SiC factory in Malaysia. And us Italians? We have the Germans’ European rival in the field, the historic ST Microelectronics, a Franco-Italian company that invests in Sicily and China.
In October 2022 ST Microelectronics announced the investment of approximately 730 million euros over 5 years for the construction of an integrated plant for the production of silicon carbide (SiC) substrates in one of its factories in Catania, next to the existing factory which already produces SiC devices.
The consultancy firm Boston Consulting still expects annual growth in the SiC sector of as much as 30%, at least until 2030. All while China is flooding the market with SiC chips.
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