According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, domestic new energy vehicles will continue to grow rapidly in 2022, with production and sales reaching 7.058 million/6.887 million volume, a year-on-year increase of 96.9%/93.4%, and a market share of 25.6%.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers expects that China's new energy vehicle sales will reach 9 million units in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 35%.

Charging piles are the infrastructure in the field of new energy vehicles.

As of the end of 2021, the scale of charging facilities nationwide has reached 2.617 million units, 1,298 exchange stations, serving nearly 8 million new energy vehicles, and the state and local governments have actively introduced a series of industrial incentive policies, which will effectively promote the efficient construction and reasonable layout of charging piles.

According to the "Implementation Opinions on Further Improving the Service Guarantee Capacity of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure", by the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan", China's electric vehicle charging guarantee capacity will be further improved, forming a moderately advanced, balanced layout, intelligent and efficient charging infrastructure system, which can meet the charging needs of more than 20 million electric vehicles.

Sales of new energy vehicles continue to grow, charging piles face a large gap and charging speed improvement.

The future of high-power fast charging is here

At present, the charging time of ordinary fast charging equipment common in China still takes about 40min, while slow charging takes about 8h, new

Energy vehicle manufacturers have laid out high-power charging solutions for faster charging.

In September 2021, BYD released the e-platform 3.0, which has an 800V flash charging function and achieves a range of 150 kilometers in 5 minutes of charging;

In November 2021, the G9 model displayed by Xpeng Motors at the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show became the first production car in China based on the 800V high-voltage SiC platform, which can replenish the range of up to 200 kilometers in 5 minutes of charging;

Li Auto will simultaneously develop Whale and Shark platform 800V high-voltage architecture models, equipped with 400kW high-power charging piles, and plans to launch at least two high-voltage pure electric vehicles every year after 2023, achieving a range of 400 kilometers in 10 minutes of charging.

The fast charging scheme of the high-voltage platform has higher requirements for the performance of the power devices used in the charging pile, such as voltage resistance, conversion efficiency, and conduction loss.

Charging module

The charging module is the core component of the charging pile, and the technical iteration has entered the fast lane.

Charging includes DC charging and AC charging.

AC charging pile: the essence is a socket with control, mainly including AC meter, control motherboard, display screen, emergency stop knob, AC contactor, charging gun wire and other structures, the structure is relatively simple, the need for the car charger to carry out voltage transformation rectification, almost no power devices are involved.

DC charging pile: its structure is more complex, including charging module, main controller, insulation detection module, communication module, main relay and other parts, of which the charging module, also known as the power module, is the core component of the charging pile industry with a technical threshold, accounting for about 50% of the total cost of the charging pile;

The core function is to convert the alternating current in the grid into direct current that can directly charge the battery, and the components include semiconductor power devices, integrated circuits, magnetic components, PCBs, capacitors, chassis fans, etc., and the cost of semiconductor power devices accounts for 30% of the total cost of the charging module, which is a key component of the charging module.

Power devices

Charging module as the core component of the charging pile, the realization of its core functions mainly relies on power semiconductor devices to play the role of rectification, voltage stabilization, switching, frequency conversion, etc., as users more pursue the miniaturization and efficiency of the charging system, power devices as the core device of the charging pile, but also face continuous optimization and upgrading.

At present, the power devices used in domestic charging piles are mainly silicon-based MOSFETs (metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors) and IGBTs.

IGBT is a composite fully controlled voltage-driven power semiconductor device composed of BJT (bipolar transistor) and MOS (insulated gate FET), which combines the advantages of high input impedance of MOSFET and low on-voltage drop of GTR, and is an ideal switching device in the field of power electronics.

However, a new technology silicon carbide device has emerged, compared with IGBT, silicon carbide device does not need conductivity modulation to achieve high withstand voltage, low impedance, and faster switching speed.

According to the Semiconductor Investment Alliance, compared with traditional silicon devices, silicon carbide modules can help charging piles increase output power by nearly 30%, reduce losses by about 50%, and enhance the stability of charging piles.

Leading power semiconductor manufacturers such as Infineon, ON Semiconductor, ROHM, Sanan Optoelectronics, China Resources Micro, and Tyco Tianrun have launched silicon carbide chips or devices that can be used in the field of charging piles.

At this stage, the penetration rate of silicon carbide modules in the charging pile market is low.

Compared with the pure silicon carbide scheme, the silicon-based IGBT+ silicon carbide SBD hybrid scheme is more widely used.

In the future, with the gradual release of global silicon carbide substrate production capacity, the continuous improvement of yield under the improvement of process control and the continuous maturity of technical solutions, the price of silicon carbide devices is expected to show a downward trend, and the application of its charging pile market is expected to be further promoted.