Providing an optimized integrated solution based on self-developed drivers
SiC effect, up to 86% standby power and 80% reduced mounting area

On the 13th, ROHM held a meeting with Masakazu Udagawa (ROHM President) and working-level executives and employees to announce the 2018 business strategy and key technologies for each field.

Hideo Matsui, General Manager of the Consumer Strategy Division, who gave the presentation that day, introduced ROHM's sales and technology strategies spanning the automotive and industrial home appliance sectors, while also introducing ROHM's strength in SiC-based IC miniaturization technology and self-developed drive application solutions that can be easily and quickly applied in the initial design process.


In the automotive sector, which is recording an average annual sales of 11%, the company is focusing on the market share of high-voltage onboard chargers, main inverters, and DC/DC converters, which are essential technologies specific to xEV vehicles, and to increase this, it has showcased the miniaturization of MOSFET diode chip resistors and optimal control capability through self-developed insulated gate driver ICs. This can contribute to improving the energy efficiency of inverters, which are the core of electric vehicles, and is expected to drive sales growth of more than eight times since 2018.

The industrial sector is also expected to grow by more than 13% annually based on China's continued investment in facilities and organic EL panels, and is mass-producing high-efficiency, ultra-small SiC power solutions to aggressively secure market share.

Targeting the provision of optimized design solutions for the factory automation sector, ROHM aims to achieve miniaturization and high efficiency through SiC AC/DC, high-speed and high-precision through high-speed DC/DC and digital power supply, and high power and ultra-low resistance requirements for shunt resistors at the industry's highest level. ROHM's factory automation inverter solutions can provide optimal energy efficiency. In addition, isolated gate drivers for maximum long-term use, and ROHM's high-frequency, ultra-small SiC MOSFETs, IGBTs, and SJ-MOSFETs are provided for use in power block solutions.

In the home appliance sector, which accounted for 57% of total sales as of 2017, Manager Hideo Matsui said that most home appliances will be converted to inverters due to energy conservation regulations, which are a global issue.

This is expected to increase the demand for heat dissipation fan motors, which are essential for inverter devices, and this will drive the demand for DC motors, which are the basis of fan motors. Manager Hideo Matsui is making every effort to target the top 3 fan motor makers at the peak of this market share expansion and supply the high-voltage fan motor package type provided by ROHM.

We have a Power MOSFET lineup from 1.5A to 2.5A through optimized driver solutions and small ICs, and by using the same package for all products, we provide efficiency to the user's package mounting design. ROHM's high-voltage fan motor package type configured in this way can be proposed as a ROHM product from the control to the motor drive block, and users can configure a unified development architecture by using the same driver.
ROHM expects its overseas high-voltage fan motor sales to increase 21-fold by 2020.


After the meeting, General Manager Hideo Matsui stated in a separate interview with our newspaper that optimization through drivers can help customers’ products achieve reliability and faster market entry by using the most optimized solution from the standpoint of developing sets. He also stated that ROHM’s SiC products can use a bandwidth that is tens to hundreds of times wider than that of conventional IGBTs, and by enabling faster transmission of a wider range of capacities, they can also lead the way in miniaturizing peripheral devices.