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According to Nikkei News on July 1, the market share of electronic vehicles (EV) has expanded, so electronics giants in Japan (such as Toshiba) have aggressively increased their investment on capacities of EV semiconductors, in order to catch up with Infineon Technologies (from Germany) and ON Semiconductor (from USA).
The Japanese manufacturers plan to increase capacity for power supply control IC that can save energy for EV, reported Nikkei News. In this sector, Infineon and ON Semiconductor are the top two globally. Japan's Mitsubishi Electric and Fuji Electric are ranked at the third and fourth places.
Nikkei pointed out that Toshiba plans to invest JPY 30 billion in the coming three years. By 2020, Toshiba will expand the capacity of power supply control IC to 1.5 times as many as its current capacity in 2017.
Speaking of Mitsubishi Electric, it plans to invest JPY 10 billion in 2018. By the end of 2020, it aims to expand power supply control IC's power component business revenue to JPY 200 billion.
When it comes to Fuji Electric, it plans to invest JPY 20 billion in 2018, in order to expand its domestic factory capacity. From 2020 on, it will invest an extra JPY 30 billion, so that in 2023, its power supply control IC business' revenue will rise to JPY 150 billion (1.5 times of current revenue).
Regarding Rohm, it plans to totally invest JPY 60 billion by the end of 2024, so that its SiC power supply control IC's capacity will expand to 16 times of current capacity.
According to Japan's Fuji Keizai survey, in the future, home appliance, consumer electronics, automobile, and industrial sectors will be the major sources of rising power supply control IC demand. Particularly, demand for automobile and electronics equipment segments is expected to grow as autonomous driving technologies evolve. Therefore, by 2030, global power supply control IC market scale will expand to JPY 4.6798 trillion, skyrocketing 72.1% from that in 2017.
In particular, Si power supply control IC market scale is predicted to expand to JPY 4.1778 trillion by 2030, soaring 55.3% from that in 2017.
For SiC, because the automobile and electronics equipment demand is estimated to be strong, SiC products' global market scale is projected to rise to JPY 227 billion in 2030, up 830% from that in 2017.
In view of GaN, its products' market scale is predicted to come to JPY 130 billion in 2030, up 722% from that in 2017 because the automobile demand is expected to increase.
International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasted that in 2030, global EV sales will expand to 21.5 million vehicles, 15 times of what in 2017.