Editing by Greg Gao

Chinese auto electronics and electric vehicle giant BYD has won in developing automotive IGBT and joined the 1^st tier suppliers along with Mitsubishi, Infineon, and others which had been dominant for decades, reported JW Insights.

As a vital chip for automobile power conversion, power semiconductor is mainly used for inverter, frequency conversion, and rectification. Among them, IGBT and MOSFET devices are the most widely used.

In 2004, BYD invested RMB300 million($47 million) to establish a wholly-owned subsidiary, Shenzhen BYD Microelectronics (the predecessor of BYD Semiconductor), to engage in the production, operation, and sales of power IC. It has two production bases in Shenzhen and Ningbo.

In 2008, Wang Chuanfu, the founder and chairman of BYD Company, decided to acquire Zhongwei Integrated Circuit (Ningbo), a chip company founded by the company from the Taiwan island, with RMB171 million($26.8 million) and changed its name to Ningbo BYD Semiconductor.

This acquisition put BYD Semiconductor’s IGBT product development and manufacturing on the right track. Based on the previous R&D accumulation, BYD’s engineers successfully developed the first-generation IGBT 1.0 chip in its Ningbo Zhongwei factory in 2009.

Since 2012, BYD has successively launched IGBT 2.0 and IGBT 2.5, but neither captured much attention in the market at that time. With the continuous iteration and upgrade of technology, BYD Semiconductor finally released a new automotive-grade IGBT 4.0. in 2018. This chip has been dramatically improved in performance, battery life, and power consumption and became a benchmark for China’s automotive IGBTs.

The company’s business has now covered the R&D, production, and sales of power semiconductors, intelligent control ICs, intelligent sensors, and optoelectronic semiconductors. It established integrated operation chains, including chip design, wafer manufacturing, packaging and testing, and downstream applications. BYD Semiconductor has currently successfully obtained a foothold in the IGBT market. 

BYD already owns 15 core technologies and 187 technical patents in the field of semiconductors and is the top automobile IGBT manufacturer in China and the second in the world.

With the maturity of electric vehicle technology and the flourishing of the industry, China’s automotive chip players have ushered in a golden opportunity. In the crisis of semiconductor shortage, China’s domestic automotive chips have gained more market demand. In the future, with the continuous support of policies and increased investment, China’s automotive chips are expected to usher in a new era and close the gap with foreign manufacturers, said a JW Insight analyst.