Power GaN: the next wave…

High volumes in the GaN market are today a reality… The market research and strategy consulting company Yole Intelligence, part of Yole Group has developed comprehensive and accurate compound semiconductor expertise, with specific investigations fully dedicated to power electronics applications. All year long, analysts deliver pertinent analyses, including technology and market reports and quarterly market monitors.

Today, Yole’s compound semiconductor team releases the annual report, Power GaN 2022. This 2022 edition details the penetration of GaN devices in different applications from the system point of view and forecasts that penetration from device to wafer level with different granularities. In addition, this report offers comprehensive analyses of market dynamics, supply chain evolution, and the latest technology trends for various applications.

The consumer power supply market will be worth more than US$915.6 million by 2027, with a 52% CAGR between 2021 and 2027. For datacom/telecom, Yole expects an increase in GaN penetration in the mid-term as regulations become stricter. The interest in adopting 48V-Point-Of-Load systems in data centers to reduce power consumption and cabling volume will favor GaN for low-voltage applications. An increasing number of power suppliers are adopting GaN in their systems. Transphorm, EPC, Texas Instruments, Infineon, and GaN Systems have all announced several design wins. Therefore, the GaN market for datacom/telecom is expected to have a 69% CAGR over the forecast period, to more than US$617.8 million in 2027.

At a lower penetration level, automotive DC-DC converters and OBCs will be part of the next wave of growth during the forecast period. There are ever more collaborations between GaN device players, who are accelerating the automotive qualification of their products, and the Tier-1 and OEMs , who are evaluating automotive GaN solutions. The GaN automotive market is expected to exceed US$227 million by 2027, with a 99% CAGR between 2021 and 2027.
In its Power GaN 2022 report, Yole’s analysts also highlight the dynamic supply chain with new entrants and significant investments.
Indeed, since the release of the 2021 report, the market research & strategy consulting company has witnessed the entry of new players into the supply chain. Notably, Rohm is offering a 150V GaN product for telecom/datacom applications. BelGaN, a new GaN foundry based in Belgium, has recently acquired onsemi’s fab. And on the fundraising front, Navitas went public through a SPAC business combination after an agreement valued at US$1.04 billion with Live Oak Acquisition Corp.
Focusing on the Chinese ecosystem, the government has supported more investments from GaN players. It is noteworthy that Innoscience, a privately owned company, is investing more than US$400 million to expand its 8-inch wafer capacity from 10k to 70k wafers per month by 2025. A domestic supply chain for GaN power is well developed, especially for the consumer market.
The transition to the 8-inch platform and the consolidation of the supply chain with more players at each level are driving lower manufacturing costs, especially at the epitaxy step, which constitutes the most significant part of a GaN device’s cost structure. In fact, one of the big questions is around the use of in-house epitaxy and outsourced epitaxy for future high volumes.
Yole invites you to follow the automotive industry and the strategies of the computing players that comprise it on yolegroup.com. Stay tuned!