With the improvement of residents' spending power, household appliances have become one of the main consumer goods in every family. White goods are the specific category names for a classification of household appliances. White goods refer to electrical products that can replace people's housework, mainly including washing machines, some kitchen appliances and electrical appliances that improve the living environment and improve the material living standard.
The third generation of semiconductors helps the household appliance industry to develop new products and improve technical content and quality; Realize the intelligent, high-end and green development of the home appliance industry. This also greatly promotes more and more semiconductor companies to increase the third-generation semiconductors, and it is foreseeable that the market for silicon carbide devices will show their strengths in home appliance applications.
At present, there are two main types of silicon carbide power devices used in the home appliance industry, one is silicon carbide Schottky diodes, and the other is silicon carbide MOSFETs. SiC Schottky diodes are mainly used for power factor correction circuits (PFCs), while SiC MOSFETs are used for motor drives, etc.
As a representative material of the third generation of semiconductors, silicon carbide is one of the ideal materials for making high-temperature, high-frequency, high-power, and high-voltage devices, and its solutions can make the system more efficient, lighter, and more compact. At present, it has been widely used in automotive electric drive, photovoltaic inverter, OBC, charging pile and other fields. In addition to this, the white goods sector is also an opportunity for silicon carbide, especially in air conditioners.
The efficiency of silicon carbide can reduce the size of air conditioning radiators and the cost of thermal management; Higher switching frequencies can reduce the cost and size of magnetics and achieve higher power density; Low EMI can reduce the cost of EMI filters and the cost of research and development to solve EMI. These advantages of silicon carbide ultimately help customers achieve lower system costs and better system performance.
The opportunities for silicon carbide devices in other home appliances will also become widespread with the application of air conditioners. Theoretically, as long as it is PFC or boost circuit, as well as high-voltage or high-power power supply occasions, there will be silicon carbide application opportunities, such as TV (commercial display or special function display), commercial drum washing machine, high-end microwave oven, high-end rice cooker, etc., and other PFC topology circuits greater than 500W. The higher the power and higher the voltage, the more obvious the advantages of using silicon carbide, which can improve system efficiency, reduce board size, and optimize system structure, thereby helping engineers design products with better performance and higher reliability.
