SiC device market keep on growing +38% y-o-y, as per Yole

Yole Développement finds despite overall power electronics 2012 downturn, SiC device market kept on growing with a +38% increase year to year. Yole says started late in 2011, the power electronics downturn in 2012 was quite severe, exhibiting -20% negative growth. The market suffered from the global economic downturn combined with external factors like China controlling what happened in some selected markets (Wind turbine or Rail traction projects that have been stopped or postponed), as per Yole. PV inverters is the biggest market for SiC devices in 2012. Yole says in 2011 and 2012 SiC diode business was the most buoyancy due to micro-inverter applications, however Yole Développement is confident that both JFET and MOSFET will quickly catch-up and become dominant in revenue by 2016. SiC device (bare-dies or packaged discretes) market reached about $75M in 2012 with a sharp domination by Infineon and CREE again, however the competition is little by little grabbing market share with STMicroelectronics and Rohm closing the loop, according to Yole. Other findings shared by Yole includes: There are now more than 30 companies worldwide which have established a dedicated SiC device manufacturing capability with related commercial and promotion activities. Virtually, all other existing Silicon-based power device makers are also more or less active in the SiC market but ...