Speaking of high-speed rail, I believe everyone's first impression is that it is fast, stable and safe, and it has become the first in the world.
From Beijing to Shanghai, it takes more than ten hours to drive from 1200 km, but the high-speed train only takes four and a half hours.
If you test everyone, what are the core components of high-speed rail? I believe many people can't imagine it.
It is neither a motor set that can make the train reach a top speed of 350km/h and a power of tens of thousands of kilowatts, nor a high-speed rail transmission line network that can continuously provide electricity, but an IGBT chip that is only the size of our nails!
Simply put, the acceleration speed, maximum speed, power consumption, whether it can be started instantly, whether it can be driven comfortably and whether it can be stopped stably all depend on this small IGBT.
However, since the birth of the first generation IGBT chip 1988, the core technology of its manufacturing has been firmly in the hands of overseas giants such as Infineon and Mitsubishi. Even national high-speed train sets have to spend huge sums of money on external procurement.
Take 2008 as an example. With the rapid laying of high-speed rail to every corner of the country by the "Infrastructure Maniacs", an 8-car train needs 152 chips, and the cost is as high as 2 million yuan.
The annual demand for 65438+ million chips is rounded to1300 million!
Take Mitsubishi as an example, it made a lot of money just by monopolizing the high-speed rail in China, and even strategically abandoned the low-voltage market of 2,500 volts. Anyway, with China's support, there is nothing to hide.
So, what is the origin of this small part?
What impact will this core component of high-speed rail have on the new energy industry?
Today, the President will give you a brief introduction of IGBT.
0 1.IGBT, what's wrong?
IGBT (scientific name insulated gate bipolar transistor) is a kind of composite fully controlled voltage driven power semiconductor device.
Are you a little confused? Never mind, listen to the president explain to you:
As we know, metals have good conductivity and belong to conductors; Ceramics and plastics have poor conductivity and belong to insulators.
The material with conductivity between the two is semiconductor.
If we can artificially control the conductivity of semiconductors, we can play an unimaginable role in daily life!
Our protagonist IGBT today is such a semiconductor with controllable conductivity.
Simply put, IGBT is a switch that controls whether the circuit is on or off.
It can withstand tens to hundreds of amperes of current when it is open;
When it is turned off, it can withstand hundreds to thousands of volts.
The biggest feature of IGBT is that it can be switched nearly ten thousand times per second (10kHz) at this current and voltage level!
As long as it is pulse width modulation, the input current can easily become alternating current with the frequency people need!
This electricity can be used to drive the AC motor of the high-speed rail. Moreover, the speed of the motor can be changed by changing the frequency of alternating current, so as to achieve the purpose of high-speed rail speed change. Isn't it amazing?
IGBT is such a core device responsible for energy conversion and transmission, so it is also called "CPU" of power electronic devices.
Therefore, it is not surprising that IGBT was listed as the second major technical breakthrough of the country 16 during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period.
02. How important is IGBT to new energy vehicles?
Like high-speed rail, IGBT is also the core component of new energy vehicles except batteries.
This can be seen from the cost:
Besides the power battery, IGBT is the second most expensive component of new energy vehicles.
As the core of the motor drive system, the cost of IGBT accounts for nearly 10% of the whole vehicle manufacturing cost!
Needless to say, 30% of the raw material cost of DC charging piles will be handed over to IGBT, a big money burner.
IGBT can reverse the high-power direct current output by the battery into alternating current, and provide it to the AC motor, and change the speed of the AC motor through frequency conversion and voltage transformation, thus accurately changing the speed and acceleration ability of the vehicle.
When using AC charging pile to charge, it is also necessary to convert IGBT into DC and raise the voltage to the voltage of the battery pack before charging the battery pack. This also affects the charging efficiency and charging speed of new energy vehicles.
The same is true for DC charging piles, except that the process of electric energy conversion is put in the charging piles.
This is not over.
Not only the motor drive needs IGBT, but also the generator and air conditioning part of new energy vehicles need IGBT to work together.
The principle is similar to that of the motor drive system, except that the current will be smaller if the high-power inverter is changed to the low-power inverter.
Therefore, the quality of IGBT will directly affect the most intuitive performance of these new energy vehicles, such as power, efficiency and energy consumption. It is understandable that the cost is so high.
In 20 16, the global sales volume of electric vehicles (including commercial vehicles) was about 2 million, and the cost of purchasing IGBT was almost 900 million dollars. An average car costs $450, which is the most expensive component except the battery in electric vehicles.
For example, Tesla Model X adopts 132 IGBT single-tube control cost provided by Infineon, including 36 front motors and 96 rear motors, with a total cost of $650.
If a more perfect IGBT module is used, the cost may exceed $65,438+0,500. ...
Toyota, the world's largest car company by market value, decided when developing hybrid cars in the 1990s that the IGBT, the core of electronic control, must be completely in its own hands.
According to President Akio Toyoda, "IGBT is as important as engine".
So, of course, Toyota became the only car company in the world to independently develop IGBT at that time, and also brought in its good friend and royal supplier Denso, so that everyone could make money together.
As early as 20 14, Toyota Academia Sinica cooperated with Denso to develop the world-class new IGBT chip.
But this is not enough: Toyota's sales volume is the highest in the world. What if the production capacity is insufficient?
Therefore, with the help of Denso, Toyota invested in Infineon, a German automotive semiconductor giant and the most important IGBT supplier in the world.
This kind of binding (kidnapping) does not have to worry about supply security.
This also verifies how important IGBT is to a car company from the side.
03. The future of IGBT
At present, in the world, IGBT has developed to 7.5 generations.
The Electric Vehicle Commune has combed the development route of IGBT in the past dynasties for everyone:
Compared with the previous generation, the performance of 1-5 generation has been greatly improved, but since the sixth generation, it is not an exaggeration to say that toothpaste is squeezed slowly. In the past 20 years, the technology has not grown much rapidly.
This is because of the limitation of materials.
The silicon (Si)-based power device driving system used by IGBT has approached or even touched the ceiling of the material itself.
If we want to make a further breakthrough, we must have new materials.
At this time, the more powerful SiC (silicon carbide) appeared.
The working frequency and blocking voltage of SiC devices are increased by 2.5 times and 65,438+00 times respectively, and the working loss is reduced by about 80%. In addition, the working junction temperature is increased from 65,438+075℃ to 600℃, and the power density is further improved.
Talking about people means that new energy vehicles can get longer battery life and faster charging speed.
Although the cost of SiC is 6 times more expensive than that of ordinary Si, it still wins the favor of many manufacturers for its powerful performance.
Tesla Model 3 is the first new energy vehicle to eat crabs.
After using SiC, my waist is not sore and my legs are not painful. I can run 664km battery life with only 75kWh battery pack.
It takes only 15 minutes for V3 to recharge its battery life by 250km, which is also inseparable from the support of SiC for boosting charging.
It can be said responsibly that SiC is the future trend and absolute core of electronic control system.
But SiC is not without its shortcomings.
The technical threshold of SiC is very high, so the production capacity is limited. The high cost also makes it possible to use only high-end products.
So far, it is still in the transition period from IGBT to SiC.
Only by technological progress and cost reduction can it be widely popularized and applied.
04. Current situation in China
The status of IGBT in China can be said to be equivalent to oil.
According to the prediction of Morgan Stanley, a famous investment bank, the domestic IGBT market will reach 654.38+092 billion yuan in 2020, accounting for 35.6% of the world market share. Among them, 27% of the market, about 5 1 100 million yuan, is a new energy vehicle, which can be called a large core user.
However, the domestic technology level is still backward, which can only contribute less than 20% of the production capacity, and IGBT chips still rely heavily on imports.
At this time, BYD took the lead in standing out.
As early as 2003, before BYD started to build cars, it began to lay out IGBT and completed the R&D team in 2005. Then don't talk about electric cars. Toyota is the only hybrid car in mass production.
There is also an interesting episode here.
BYD, which had nothing to do with the semiconductor industry at that time, took a fancy to the patent of 6-inch semiconductor production line of Ningbo Zhongwei.
Taking advantage of the insolvency and bankruptcy of Ningbo Zhongwei, BYD only used 65,438+0/65,438+00 of the investment in that year, that is, 65,438+0.7 billion yuan, and made the acquisition by taking advantage of the fire.
Supposedly, whether from the strategic layout or economic point of view, this transaction can be called textbook level.
People don't buy it, and the industry is complaining. Reflected in the stock price, every minute is a 30% plunge.
Fortunately, with talents and production lines, BYD successfully passed the appraisal of national scientific and technological achievements, achieved a great breakthrough of IGBT chip from 0 to 1, and broke the technological monopoly of international giants.
You know the next story. At the end of 20 18, BYD fully released the "IGBT4.0" technology independently developed, and also announced to the world that it has a world-class complete IGBT industrial chain like Toyota.
It's been almost 20 years.
As for the next generation of semiconductor material SiC, BYD has also invested heavily in production and research and development, and it has been partially applied in BYD Tang EV to improve the charging efficiency of Tang EV. Moreover, it is said that SiC will also be fully applied in the upcoming BYD Han. Friends who pay attention to BYD Korea can look forward to Korea's endurance performance and fast charging power.
Besides BYD, other domestic semiconductor companies are not idle.
At the beginning of this year, Jiaxing Starr Semiconductor Co., Ltd., a China company with the top ten IGBT market share in the world, officially rang the bell of the main board. Together with the state-owned Zhuzhou CRRC Times Electric Co., Ltd., the global IGBT market share Top 15 has squeezed into two China enterprises.
Other companies are also catching up, trying to smooth the gap with world-class manufacturers.
The President also believes that in the future Top 15, there will be more outstanding China enterprises.
Write it at the end
1956 On July 13, the first self-owned car produced in China officially rolled off the assembly line. While the whole country is jubilant, it also announces that a new chapter in the domestic automobile industry has officially kicked off.
In that era of fuel vehicles, the domestic automobile industry has been restricted by gearboxes and has not developed.
Gearbox, like IGBT, is the core component, and the core technology is also in the hands of others.
Want it? Sorry, take the money to buy it. Profits are naturally divided into three parts.
You are three, others are seven.
In the eyes of the other party, this is kneeling to make money and do business, not being poor.
In recent years, the automobile industry has entered the era of electrification.
With the slogan of "overtaking in corners", domestic enterprises began to step up their independent research and development of three major power systems.
In addition to BYD, which is self-sustaining by Sanpower and IGBT,
Battery giant Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. stood up;
Weilai, listed in the United States, went out;
Behind it are Tucki, Ideal, and a large number of supplier companies, all of which are catching up in small steps. ...
Slowly, people find that with the support of policies and technology, they can stand and earn money.
When you stand up straight, it will be difficult for you to talk.
I am looking forward to the day when domestic new energy vehicles can go abroad, go to the world and become the industry leader with their own hard power.
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Some time ago, according to the sales volume and heat list,
Just did the real endurance test of 1 1 popular car.
When we run all the electricity of this 1 1 car.
The result is amazing!
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Reply to "battery life" and you will see it!
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.