By 2020, the fast-growing market of renewable energy, rail transport, frequency converter and industrial power will push the sales of power and electronic discrete devices to 15 billion US dollars. With the performance of silicon-based power electronic devices approaching its theoretical limit, SiC and GaN devices will enter the power electronic market in a large scale. It is expected that SiC and GaN power devices will gain 14% and 8% market share respectively by 2020. In the future, the development of power electronic components market will concentrate more on the technological innovation of SiC and GaN.  

        Lux Research predicts that by 2020, power electronic components based on SiC or GaN will have a 22% market share, with sales of $3.3 billion.

        SiC devices will take the lead in GaN because of their better maturity and reliability. At present, the leading suppliers of GaN power devices are EPC, Transphorm and IR.

        The growth of SiC power devices is mainly driven by renewable energy, which will account for 32% of the solar market. In the field of rail transit, the application of SiC and GaN is comparable, and the market share of SiC and GaN is expected to be 16% and 15% respectively by 2020. GaN has an advantage over SiC in IT and electronic equipment markets, with an estimated market share of 14% by 2020. In the building market, GaN devices have a bright future, with an estimated $2.4 billion market.

        Over the past five years, investors have invested more than $200 million in SiC and GaN devices. Transphorm, EpiGaN, GaNSystems and Azzurro have completed several rounds of fundraising; Fairchild purchased TranSiC, Infineon purchased SiCed, ROHM purchased SiCrystal, SKC purchased Crysband.