While materials like SiC and GaN are making gains, silicon will maintain an 87% market share in 2024 through advances in circuits, controls, and packaging, says Lux Research. Driven by technology innovations, silicon-based power electronics will continue their domination of the fastest-growing and largest markets. These advances will allow silicon to maintain an 87% market share, worth $20 billion, and will relegate wide-bandgap (WBG) materials to a smaller market share, according to Lux Research.
Innovations in circuit design, control methods and module packaging will help silicon hold off adoption of WBG materials in many applications, particularly in the near-term on account of silicon's high availability and volumes.
"Circuit design innovation will have its biggest impact on space and efficiency improvements in IT and consumer electronics, while control method innovation impacts size reduction across all applications," said Tiffany Huang, Lux Research Associate and lead author of the report titled, "Sorting Through the Maze of Silicon Innovations in Power Electronics."
"Innovations in module packing can not only reduce size, but increase the efficiency to be on par with current WBG innovations in transportation markets," she added.