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What is the reason why IGBT has become the core of new energy vehicles?

For new energy vehicles, the battery, VCU, BSM, and motor efficiency all lack room for improvement. The most room for improvement is the motor drive part, and the core component of the motor drive part is IGBT(Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor, Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor chip) is the most important.

IGBT accounts for about half of the cost of the motor drive system, while the motor drive system accounts for 15-20% of the cost of the whole vehicle, that is to say, IGBT accounts for 7-10% of the cost of the whole vehicle, which is the second highest cost component except the battery, and also determines the energy efficiency of the whole vehicle.

Not only the motor drive to use IGBT, new energy generators and air conditioning parts generally also need IGBT. Not only new energy vehicles, but also the core of DC charging piles and locomotives (high-speed rail) are IGBT tubes. 30% of the raw material cost of DC charging piles is IGBT. Electric locomotives generally need 500 IGBT modules, EMUs need more than 100 IGBT modules, and a subway needs 50-80 IGBT modules.

Mitsubishi Electric's HVIGBT has become the default standard in the industry. China's high-speed locomotive IGBT is completely monopolized by Mitsubishi. At the same time, Alstom, Siemens and Bombardier in Europe also use more than half of Mitsubishi Electric's IGBT.

In addition to Japanese manufacturers, Infineon has taken over the IGBT of almost all electric vehicles, while mitsubishi electric is intoxicated by the huge profits of China's high-speed rail and has achieved almost nothing in the market below 2500V.

In 2016, the global sales volume of electric vehicles was about 2 million, which consumed about 0.9 billion US dollars of IGBT tubes, with an average of about 450 US dollars per vehicle. It is the most expensive component in electric vehicles except batteries.

Among them, there are about 770000 hybrid and PHEV vehicles, each requiring about $300 IGBT, about 1.23 million pure electric vehicles, with an average of $540 IGBT per vehicle, and IGBTs for high-power pure electric buses may exceed $1000.

What is IGBT?

IGBT is a composite full-control voltage-driven power semiconductor device composed of BJT (bipolar transistor) and MOS (insulated gate field effect transistor).

Compared with the previous various power electronic devices, IGBT has the following characteristics: high input impedance, can use general low-cost drive circuit; high-speed switching characteristics; on-state low loss.

IGBT combines the advantages of MOSFET's high input impedance and GTR's low conduction voltage drop, and has obvious advantages in comprehensive performance. It is very suitable for application in DC voltage of 600V and above converter systems such as AC motors, frequency converters, switching power supplies, lighting circuits, traction drives and other fields.