Yole reports growth recovery in power electronics industry

Yole Développement (Yole) announces the return to the power electronics market growth, after two years of stagnancy. According to Yole’s analyst, the power semiconductor devices market reached $11.5B in 2014, with a 8.4 percent growth. In its latest report entitled, Status of the Power Electronics Industry (Feb. 2015 edition), the “More than Moore” market research and strategy consulting company, analyzes the evolution of the power electronics industry and the reshaping of its entire value chain. Vertical/Horizontal integration, industrial companies are looking for the road to success…

Under its new power electronics report, Yole reviews the organization of this industry taking into account the strategies of the main players and key drivers. Yole’s analysts investigate the disruptive power electronics technologies including Wide Band Gap (WBG) materials such as Silicon Carbid (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN), MOSFETs and IGBTs devices and related applications such as wind turbines, transmission and distribution, EV/HEV, rail traction, uninterruptible power supplies and motor drives…

Last year, 2014, was a year of recovery for the power electronics market. After two tough years without seeing any growth, in 2014 the market’s size increased by 8.4 percent, reaching $11.5B for power semiconductor devices. And Yole’s analysts add: “The outlook for the years ahead is also optimistic. Market growth will be driven by a significant increase in electric and hybrid vehicle (EV/HEV) sales, as well as the ramp-up of renewable energy and more smart-grid technology implementation.”

The market will surpass $17B by 2020, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.9% for the period 2014-2020.

“Power modules, and more precisely IGBTs, will lead this growth. Modules are expected to reach a CAGR 2014-2020 of 10.3%, compared to 5.1% growth for discrete components,” explains Mattin Grao Txapartegi, Technology & Market Analyst at Yole. This growth in the demand of IGBT modules is due to their improved overall performance in terms of efficiency and thermal conductivity management.

“The new wide band gap (WBG) device market will also drive growth,” says Dr Pierric Gueguen, Business Unit Manager for Power Electronics & Compound Semiconductor activities, Yole. According to Yole’s report, lot of industrial companies has been focusing its development on WBG technologies. And today, both solutions, SiC and GaN have proved to be powerful solutions. Ready to be implemented in numerous applications, WBG solutions will represent around 5% of the overall market by 2020, even though in terms of units their presence will still be limited. Dr Gueguen and his team are working to identify and analyze the current bottlenecks to implement WBG technologies in the power electronics industry.

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