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2019 Power SiC Patent Landscape with a Comparison of Planar SiC MOSFETs vs. Trench SiC MOSFETsDUBLIN, April 2, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Power SiC Patent Landscape" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Power SiC intellectual property: leadership of Japanese players, strong presence of automotive companies, and Chinese new entrants The 2016-2018 period has been crucial for the whole SiC industry. SiC MOSFETs, commercially available for several years, is gaining the confidence of numerous customers and have clearly begun to penetrate into different applications. They follow the first commercially available SiC diodes that appeared on the market over 18 years ago and gradually changed the market. The SiC device market is expected to grow steadily, from $302M in 2017 to more than $1.5B in 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 31%. In this report, the author has thoroughly investigated the patent landscape related to SiC-based power electronics, covering MOSFETs, Schottky Barrier Diodes (SBDs) and power modules. Today, there is a dichotomy in power SiC patents, with new activity from Chinese players on one side and leadership of Japanese players and the strong presence of automotive companies on the other. Japanese integrators are leading SiC MOSFET-related patenting activity We witnessed a remarkable acceleration in a patent filing related to SiC MOSFETs between 2011 and 2015, concomitant with the commercialization of the first SiC MOSFET products. Japanese integrators - especially Denso and Fuji Electric - have taken the lead in SiC MOSFET related patenting activity. China has entered the SiC MOSFET patent landscape in recent years, starting with R&D players in 2011, who were followed by major state-owned integrator companies in 2015 such as State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), CRRC and SiC pure player foundry Century Goldray, which was established in 2010 to address the whole power SiC supply chain. A common feature of these new entrants is that they intend to develop IP on both planar and trench MOSFET structures. Taiwan has a long-standing R&D player in SiC MOSFETs with ITRI, but there was no industrial player until 2016, when Hestia Power emerged, focused on cost-effective planar junction barrier Schottky (JBS) diode-integrated MOSFET structures. We note that current leading SiC device makers like Cree/Wolfspeed, Rohm, Infineon, and STMicroelectronics own some key patents but do not necessarily have strong IP leadership. There seems to be more room for challengers in the trench SiC MOSFET IP competition, although Denso is actively strengthening its leadership through the collaboration with Toyota Motor and Toyota CRDL in the context of the acceleration of SiC power technologies' development for electric and hybrid electric vehicle (EV/HEV) applications. CREE/Wolfspeed's IP portfolio is relatively small in trench SiC MOSFETs with respect to planar SiC MOSFETs, but the company owns several key patents as it started to patent important inventions before most competitors. A significant fraction of patents related to trench SiC MOSFETs concerns the protection of the gate oxide material from electric field concentration in certain portions of the gate. In this report, we go through recent developments from major IP players to address reliability issues due to gate oxides. Some new inventions deal with the increasing current capability of JBS diodes, including from Panasonic, Denso, Fuji Electric, and Infineon, and improving the stability when the device temperature rises, in patents from Panasonic and Fuji Electric. New entrants are exclusively Chinese players, including Century Goldray and SGCC. Their patents mainly relate to JBS diodes and are only filed in China for the moment. Rohm's recent patenting activity puts the emphasis on the use of full SiC modules in electric vehicles, stressing solutions to efficient heat dissipation, the reliability of power module assemblies operating at high temperature and the reduction of stray inductance. Danfoss filed four patents related to full SiC MOSFET modules in 2018, focusing on enhancement of performance through the optimized layout of interconnects inside the module. Key Topics Covered 1. Introduction
2. Methodology
3. Executive Summary
6. Patent Segmentation
7. SiC Schottky Barrier Diode
8. SiC Power Module
9. Conclusion Companies Mentioned
For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/s2l5cy Media Contact: Laura Wood, Senior Manager View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2019-power-sic-patent-landscape-with-a-comparison-of-planar-sic-mosfets-vs-trench-sic-mosfets-300822002.html SOURCE Research and Markets |