Over 30 years of continuous investment and collaboration with key players in the industrial market, ST has developed a portfolio of technologies, products and tailored solutions for customers in different industrial applications. Francesco MUGGERI, Regional VP of Marketing and Applications, Power Discrete and Analog Products, Asia Pacific, STMicroelectronics visualizes the plausible scenarios in an exchange with ELE Times
ELE Times: Explain ST’s portfolio of Industrial Solution?
Francesco MUGGERI: Industries have several high growth markets on Power and Energy, Automation and Motor Control that ST is focused on. Let me take you through and explain more on these 3 segments.
Power and energy is one of the highest growth industrial applications with 7.1% CAGR growth (2018-2021, HIS Markit). The increasing demand of energy from households and factories lead to the requests on power distribution, increased solar power applications and more efficient power conversion solutions. ST offers the Powerline communications ICs that over 120 million smart meters with ST solutions that accounts for 38% market share. ST is number 2 in Industrial Power Discrete HV MOSFET Super Junction in lighting and power conversion and top supplier for SiC.
With the fast-growing home appliances markets, motor control solutions become morev important. Over 1 Billion low voltage motors driven by ST smart power solutions which accounts for 11% Market Share. Besides, ST provides wide range of solutions of motor drivers, IGBT, MCUs and IPM in home appliances market.
Per the IHS Markit*, the CAGR growth of Manufacturing and process automation is 7.2% (2018-2021). To cater the market needs for factory automation, smarter, safer and more efficient factories and workplaces, ST offers the LV MOSFET in high-end Industrial market and Intelligent Power Switches solutions and over 1 Billion I/O channels in factories with ST drivers, analog IC such as OP AMP, VR, Efuse and Low Dropout (LDO) linear regulators etc.
*Source: IHS Markit, ABI Research, WSTS, ST Estimation
ELE Times: What is ST’s industrial market strategy and key applications especially for India?
Francesco MUGGERI: ST strives to enable smarter, safer and more efficient factories and workplaces. As said above, we focus our products and solutions in motor control, power and energy and automation areas.
To support the distinctive requirements from India market, ST provides different solutions to address major Industrial segment requirements particularly in the field of:
• Energy Storage/Conversion, Solar and Inverters
• EV Charging Stations and Switch Mode Power Supply Chargers
• LED Lighting (including LED Streetlights)
• Home Appliances shift to Inverter type and Brushless DC
• Smart Metering
ELE Times: How is ST address the changing standards of Power and Energy and driving demand for semiconductor content -Globally and in India?
Francesco MUGGERI: ST has broad product portfolio including highly-integrated AC-DC converters and controllers, monolithic DC-DC converters, silicon and silicon carbide (SiC) power MOSFETs and rectifiers, IGBTs and protection ICs, linear voltage regulators, battery management ICs – including wireless battery charger ICs – specifically designed digital controllers and STM32 microcontrollers. With these wide range of high efficiency power and energy solutions, ST could meet different requirements set by national and international initiatives.
For examples, for the home appliances market, consumers nowadays demand for more energy efficient solutions to save on electricity, ST is providing a complete Inverter reference board solution based on our latest STM32 MCU and SLIMM Series Intelligent Power Module (IPM) that has been adopted by a major Indian Home Appliance brand to achieve 5-star rating.
In the case of LED Street lighting application, we have developed a patent using our latest Power products Hi Tj SCR, ST 950V K5 High Voltage MOSFETs, which can increase the design Reliability against Line Surge and Lighting up to 6KV. I am glad to share with you that we have established the Asia Pacific Power and Energy Competence Center in Taipei, Taiwan last year to develop more innovative solutions to better serve our regional customers’ needs and I believe our India customers will be benefited with those high reliable designs.
ELE Times: What is ST’s offerings for automotive markets?
Francesco MUGGERI: ST has been participating with our major automotive India OEM’s for standard shift from BS4 to BS6 and participating on Govt move to EV by 2030. New ST products have also been developed to meet the new standards. For Motor bike and Four-Wheeler customers:
• ST has developed new High Tj SCRs to address increasing performance from BS6 on higher Tj and to cater increasing current rating due to additional load current requirement.
• ST has major design win in Integrated Starter Generator, EV Bike BLDC Inverters and in BMS applications in key customer using latest Low Voltage F7 MOSFETs
• ST carries a strong and solid portfolio of SIC MOS products that are being promoted already to India major EV Car makers for Traction Inverter block.
• ST has also captured key projects for On Board Charger (OBC) and DCDC using latest M6/DM6 Super junction MOSFETs and SIC Rectifiers Diodes
ELE Times: How is ST address the changing standards of Power and Energy and challenge that driving demand for semiconductor content -Globally and in India?
Francesco MUGGERI: The increasing awareness on the environmental protection leads to the consumers request to lower the vehicles emission and efficiency of home appliances to reduce electricity consumption. City infrastructure is a key to facilitate and accelerate of India key programs like in EV adoption. Besides, the AC Line conditions is another challenge and more robust architecture/designs are needed. Also, over dependenceof PCBA from some major supplier countries such as China is another concern. But with the launch of “Made in India” initiatives, we believe this can further accelerate India local in-house design development and production.
ELE Times: What are the key opportunities ST looking at in India?
Francesco MUGGERI: With the fast-growing India market, as mentioned above, there are challenges ahead while we believe many opportunities arise as well. India has the highest density and fast-growing population and GDP in the world, this leads to increase demands on home appliances, fridges, washing machines etc. Cost is the key factor for manufacturers to win in these markets. Furthermore, consumers enjoy the comfort and convenient of these appliances lead to the increasing demand on the electricity. The distribution of electricity, the solar power support to the remote villages and the line condition are new opportunities. With the industrialization, automation in the factories, the applications of artificial intelligence are the major concerns to the manufacturers.
ST supports the localization and strengthens the India customers’ initiatives by supporting the local customers and companies. Through the collaboration with our customers and partners, we can seize the market opportunities together.
ELE Times: What is ST doing to support energy efficiency for appliances?
Francesco MUGGERI: As mentioned, with the improving living standard, consumers enjoy more appliances to make their home more comfort and convenient on the one hand, they also request to minimize the power consumption so to lower the spending of the family. Environmental protecting is another key initiative worldwide. The energy efficiency is an important element in all appliance manufacturers.
To cater for this accelerating market (13% CAGR (2019-2023) growth), ST has established Motor Control Competence Center and invested lot of R&D efforts and manpower to bring technical expertise at the door steps of customers and provide more turnkey solutions, higher power efficiency, increased safety and reliability solutions to our customers. This has been extended to India with new BLDC inverter- based technology, Joint working with various OEM’s to develop and increase the scope with new energy norms and continues development of product portfolio.
Our technologies, Trench Gate Field Stop IGBT and Super Junction DM2 MOSFET, furthermore optimized in the specific series tuned for Home appliances needs, are focusing on energy efficiency through their outstanding static and dynamic specifications (Vce_sat, Rds_on etc.). At the same time, at system level, our Motor Control Firmware Library for STM32 is implementing the leading technology of sensor less Field Oriented Control,
delivering the best performance both in terms energy efficiency and fast dynamics. On top of it, application specific optimizations (e.g. Maximum Torque per Ampere MTPA, discontinuous PWM patterns etc.) make the complete picture offered by ST and our Motor Control Competence Center to our customers in the region.
ELE Times: Share few key customers – Global and India?
Francesco MUGGERI: We cannot disclose names of the customer, but ST has worked closely with the world leading home appliances manufacturers including the key India brands.
Francesco MUGGERI
Regional Vice President of
Marketing and Applications
Power Discrete and Analog
Products, Asia Pacific
STMicroelectronics
