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Competition between IGBTs and other power components
IGBT is no longer the only solution for high-end electronic devices. SiC Devices have been mass-produced and GaN Devices are also in trial production. The application of IGBT is gradually being pushed to medium and low voltage products. SiC is responsible for handling High Voltage products, while GaN is gradually Go to Lowvoltage's product line.


SiC has a higher optimum working voltage and higher optimum working power than GaN. Its application range is relatively narrow, limited to rail transit, offshore wind power, PV and industrial drives. For HEV, EV and PHEV markets, SiC is less competitive than GaN. HEV is currently the mainstream of the market and is monopolized by Toyota, and Toyota tends to use GaN instead of SiC. Of course, IGBT is still the mainstream before 2015.


The inverter IGBT used in Toyota's second-generation Prius PCU is a planar type, and has been a trench type since the third generation, so the size and thickness of the latter IGBT are smaller than those of the second-generation PCU. Among them, the chip area is reduced by about 17% to 11.7mm × 9.4mm, and the thickness is reduced from 380μm to 165μm. The withstand voltage has also been increased from 850V to 1250V. In addition, the IGBT equipped in the third-generation PCU, the current flowing through each chip is about 200A.