Yole Développement releases its new report dedicated to Power Electronics in vehicles: Power Electronics in Electric & Hybrid Vehicles Report. Yole Développement’s report details the Power Electronic applications in HEV & EV, HEV & EV markets with technologies and market trends, the Power Electronic supply chain as well as a SiC and GaN approach as a substitute of current silicon solutions.

Our aim is to give you an overview of the sector, the key technological challenges, the market evolution, automotive manufacturers’ needs…. Key players and products/technologies have been analyzed in this report: power electronics module represents today 20% of the materials costs for hybrid vehicles.

And a strongly growth has been clearly announced: +30% between 2009 and 2020.

A 5 Billion power module market in 2020

Toyota, the world leading car producer, has been dominant on the hybrid market up to now, but this niche market is becoming a must for car makers as the focus on car C02 emissions intensifies. Hybrid is defined in different levels: micro, mild, full, and plug in hybrid.

Micro hybrid will see the highest growth due to its low cost and easy integration, specifically in Europe.

Mild and full hybrid will continue their strong penetration in the US market. Plug-in hybrid is a bridge to EV technology, and uses the same high voltage battery technology and plug-to-grid for recharge.

EV car business will really ramp up in 2010 with the arrival of big car makers (Mitsubishi, Renault, GM, Ford, and Daimler). Limited drive range (40 miles) and high cost are still issues. But it is expected that huge investments in new Li-Ion batteries will increase the performance/cost ratio of EVs.

“Globally, more than 17 million cars will be hybrid or electric in 2015 and some forecasters suggest sales will reach 50 million units in 2020, meaning half of the cars produced”, announced Dr P. Roussel, Project Manager at Yole Développement.

Power electronics are a key technology for hybrids and represent 20% of the material costs. It is even bigger for EV cars. HEV/EV power devices are used in DC/DC converters and DC/AC inverters.

There are various configurations depending on the hybrid version and car makers’ choices. Inverters are roughly the same for full hybrid, plug in hybrid and EV cars with an average power of 50 kW. This application alone represents 74% of the total power module market for HEV and EV cars in 2009.

“IGBT is the device of choice for such high power applications and represents 80% of the total HEV/EV power module market”, explained Dr Roussel. “Standard voltage of IGBT devices is 650V but there is a trend to increase it. It is still unknown if it will be 700/800V or directly 1.2kV which is already a standard”.

The HEV/EV power module market stands at $300M in 2009 and is expected to grow strongly until 2020 at a growth rate close to 30% to reach $5B in 2020. Today, the power module market is mainly dominated by Toyota who manufactures the module internally. With the near universal involvement of other car makers, semiconductor companies (Infineon, Fuji, Mitsubishi, STM…) will enter the market and will take a big market share in the power device pie.

As HEV and EV remain expensive, car makers and tier one suppliers want to cut the cost. Power modules represent about 50% of the inverter and converter cost so power module cost reduction is the main goal of all the market players. It is expected that the power module average cost will be reduced by more than 25% in the coming years.

HEV/EV power devices value chain

Up to now, Toyota was dominating the HEV market and power module value chain. With the market growth and arrival of many players at the different levels (car makers, tier one suppliers and semi conductor companies), the landscape will change drastically. Automotive tier one suppliers invest heavily in HEV/EV powertrain and will play an important role in HEV/EV power devices value chain: Bosch, Continental, Valeo, Delphi, Denso, Hitachi….

They have the knowledge of specific automotive requirements that are very stringent for power devices.

Some of them design the power modules themselves to cut the cost.

At the same time, semi conductor companies try to climb the value chain by developing new power modules. Hence, it will be a hard time in the next years for power modules manufacturers to find a significant place on the HEV/EV market.

SiC and GaN: Key technologies for HEV/EV power device applications?

Several companies (Mitsubishi Rohm, Toyota …) have developed inverter prototype based on SiC diodes and switches that show significant size reduction up to ¼ of the size with silicon devices.

SiC has clear advantages of HEV/EV applications (better power density, less losses, higher operating temperature) but pressure for automotive is a big challenge. To succeed, the availability of SiC switches is paramount because it would allow reduction of the cooling systems cost.

At the same time, SiC devices cost would need to be significantly reduced and the passive components and packaging adapted to support high operating temperatures. If the SiC devices cost can be reduced, then SiC may be an option for HEV and EV. Maybe, it will be introduced first in EV applications that are more sensitive to losses to gain distance range. GaN is another possible option thanks to its better performance/ cost ratio compared to SiC. Toyota and many other companies evaluate this solution and consider that if SiC cost can’t be reduce, it would be an affordable substrate especially for inverter application that is very cost sensitive.

This report presents the detailed major market metrics of the current and projected HEV/EV power module, power devices and substrate business, describing the HEV/EV market and architecture, the power devices applications, the key players, the supply-chain, the volumes and related market size of each segment.

It gives the possible total accessible market for SiC and GaN, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of those materials over the current established silicon technologies.

Power Electronics in Electric & Hybrid Vehicles

Catalogue price: Euros 3,590
Publication date: October 2009
For more information, please contact David Jourdan ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or +33 472 83 01 90).

Author
Dr Philippe Roussel holds a Ph-D in Integrated Electronics Systems from the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) in Lyon. He joined Yole Développement in 1998 and is leading the Compound Semiconductors and Power Electronics techno-economical market analysis department.

About Yole Développement
Yole Développement is a market research and strategy consulting company, specialised in the MEMS fields as well as compound semiconductors, power electronics and photovoltaic. Yole Développement offers various kinds of services:

Custom market research and technology/strategy analysis
    • Marketing and communication services through MicroNews
    • Market reports

Founded in 1998, Yole Développement is the world leader in the analysis of the microtechnologies and compound semiconductors markets. Every single day, Yole’s team of 18 consultants is in contact with the world’s key players, industrial companies, R&D institutes and investors, in order to help them understand the markets and technology trends. In our analyses, we take into account the whole value chain including materials and equipment suppliers as well as device and system manufacturers.

For information about:
• Compound Semiconductor and Power electronics activities, Dr Philippe Roussel ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )
• Yole Développement: J.C Eloy ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )

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