Thermistor is a kind of sensitive components, according to the temperature coefficient is divided into positive temperature coefficient thermistor (PTC) and negative temperature coefficient thermistor (NTC). The typical characteristic of thermistors is that they are sensitive to temperature and exhibit different resistance values at different temperatures. The positive temperature coefficient thermistor (PTC) has a larger resistance value when the temperature is higher, and the negative temperature coefficient thermistor (NTC) has a lower resistance value when the temperature is higher. They belong to the same semiconductor device.

NTC products and PTC products are both thermistor products.

NTC(Negative Temperature Coefficient, negative temperature coefficient) The higher the temperature of the resistor, the lower the resistance of the semiconductor material or component. NTC thermistors are made of manganese, cobalt, nickel, copper and other metal oxides as the main materials, and are widely used in temperature measurement, temperature control, temperature compensation and so on.

PTC(Positive Temperature Coefficient, positive temperature coefficient thermistor) resistor at the higher the temperature, the greater the resistance of semiconductor materials or components, often manifested as a sharp increase in resistance at a certain temperature, with a positive temperature coefficient. The semiconductor BaTiO3 and other materials are added to increase the positive resistance temperature coefficient of Mn, Fe, Cu, Cr oxides and other role of additives, the use of general ceramic process molding, high temperature sintering and so on and its solid solution semi-conductive, so as to obtain positive characteristics of the thermistor material. PTC thermistors can be used in industry for temperature measurement and control, but also for a certain part of the car temperature detection and regulation, but also a large number of civilian equipment, such as the control of instantaneous water boiler water temperature, air conditioners and cold storage temperature, the use of their own heating for gas analysis and wind turbine and so on.

Thermistor Advantages

Source: China Industry Information Network.

2015 thermistor main demand market outlook

1. The successful application of NTC products in consumer electronics will double the market space.

NTC products are mainly used in air conditioners, refrigerators, induction cookers and other household appliances, with an annual demand of about 0.7 billion. The overall demand in the home appliance industry has slowed down, but due to the gradual increase in market concentration, leading companies such as Gree have performed outstandingly, while the proportion of high-end products has gradually increased. For example, the application of variable frequency air conditioning sensors is twice that of fixed frequency. Therefore, the NTC products applied in the home appliance industry will not shrink significantly as the growth of the home appliance industry slows down, and the overall demand will remain at a low growth level.

NTC products in addition to the home appliance industry application demand, the automotive application market demand is relatively large, but the unmet large application market is consumer electronics. Due to the immaturity of the previous temperature sensor chip technology, it has not yet been integrated into mobile phones and other products on a large scale. However, this demand is still quite valuable. By integrating high-precision temperature sensors, users can monitor the temperature of the environment in real time, especially in wearable devices.

Gartner estimate that the total number of global electronic devices (including PC, tablet and mobile phone) shipped in 2013 will reach 2.4 billion units. According to IDC's 2013 global mobile phone shipments of 1.8 billion units, my country's mobile phone production reached 1.46 billion units, and my country's output accounted for 81.1 percent of global shipments.

In 2013, global smartphone shipments exceeded 1 billion units for the first time, reaching 1.004 billion units. Therefore, once the temperature sensor configuration technology in the consumer electronics market is mature, the potential demand is about 2 billion units and the output value is more than 1 billion yuan. This market is more than double the NTC market for home appliances, and 80% of consumer electronics manufacturing capacity is in China. If you include office automation products such as printers and other electronic equipment application needs, the market demand is greater.

Therefore, the consumer electronics market will be the biggest attraction for the growth of the NTC market in the future, and it may more than double the size of the industry market, and the market development prospects are very good.

2. The biggest attraction of PTC product growth is that the release of new energy vehicles will bring great application space.

The main function of PTC products is to use electric energy to directly generate heat. At present, the application of low-end aspects such as foot tub and kettle heating is large, and the application of auxiliary heating of new energy vehicles has just begun. New energy electric vehicles are an important direction for the development of automobiles. New energy electric vehicles are equivalent to directly converting electrical energy into mechanical energy without the combustion of fossil fuels. They have high conversion efficiency and good cleanliness. They are a long-term promising development direction in the future. At present, due to the lack of technological maturity, the sales volume of pure electric vehicles is very small. Hybrid electric vehicles are a compromise solution in the current development process. However, due to the small size of the electric vehicle (including hybrid electric vehicles) market, the government has made great efforts to promote the market. The growth rate is very fast.

There are two types of air conditioner heating methods: one is electric heating, that is, the current heats through the heating wire, mainly using PTC heating components; the other is heat pump heating, that is, gaseous refrigerant condensation heat release. Traditional automobile heat pump heating is through the engine crankshaft and pulley to drive the compressor for heating. Since electric vehicles do not have a traditional engine, they can only drive the compressor to cool or heat through the motor. The energy efficiency of the ultra-high efficiency motor is about 92%, and the compressor itself also has energy efficiency loss. The comprehensive energy efficiency should be below 80%, while the thermal efficiency of the PTC heating component is almost 100, and the cost is low. Due to its small size, PTC can be placed anywhere the car can be wired, and the heating effect is better. The actual energy efficiency effect is far greater than the traditional automobile gaseous refrigerant condensation heat release and motor-driven compressor heating. Therefore, PTC products will be more and more widely used in electric vehicles. The applications of PTC in new energy vehicles include automotive air conditioning auxiliary heating, automotive water heating, and automotive seat cushion heating components.

From 2011 to 2014, the national sales of pure electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles were about 8000, 16000, 18000 and 53000 respectively, with a compound growth rate of 187.8. However, due to the market recognition and technological maturity of new energy vehicles, the sales volume of more than 50000 units accounts for less than 3‰ compared with the total car sales in the first November 21.08 million 2014, which is far lower than the government's planning and expectation. Therefore, the subsequent new energy vehicles, especially electric vehicles, will accelerate the volume. According to the State Council's "Energy Saving and New Energy vehicle Industry Development Plan" in July 2014, in terms of sales, by 2015, the cumulative production and sales of pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles will strive to reach 500000; by 2020, the production capacity of pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles will reach 2 million, and the cumulative production and sales will exceed 5 million. In 2015, pure electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles are expected to be significantly expanded.

Estimation of PTC market size: the PTC market for automobiles uses a large amount of single automobiles, and the selling price of PTC heaters for air conditioners with 1 kW power in the market is about 50~200 yuan/set. PTC products for electric automobiles are used in a large number, with high power requirements and high-end positioning. PTC products for automobiles are given a price of 1000 yuan/car. The market space of PTC products for 50000 electric vehicles is 0.05 billion, the scale of 500000 electric vehicles is 0.5 billion yuan, and the market scale of 2 million electric vehicles is 2 billion yuan. This is much larger than the current PTC market size, but also more than twice the size of the NTC market.

3, Automotive Electronics Market

At present, about 10-20 sensors are installed in ordinary cars, and up to 100 or 200 sensors are installed in high-end cars. In the first November of 2014, China produced more than 2100 million cars per year, but such a huge market was almost monopolized by enterprises in Japan, Europe, the United States and other countries. The automotive electronics market is huge, including engine control systems, chassis control systems, and body electronic control systems (body electronic ECU).

In 2012, the global output value of automotive electronics was 153 billion billion US dollars, and the domestic output value of China was 267.2 billion billion yuan, accounting for 28.7 percent. Benefiting from the increased demand for comfort and safety after the popularity of automobiles, the proportion of automotive electronics in the cost of vehicles has continued to increase, now reaching about 25%, and will continue to increase in the future. STMicroelectronics is expected to increase to 50% by 2020. On the other hand, the current proportion of automotive electronics costs in new energy vehicles has reached 47%. With the gradual increase in the output of new energy vehicles, the output value of automotive electronic bicycles will continue to increase. Automotive sensors are of high value, and their unit price is dozens of times that of air conditioning sensors. At present, the sensors used by Huagong Technology in automotive electronics are mainly NTC-based resistance sensors such as temperature sensors, ambient light sensors and speed regulating resistors. According to the calculation of 5 single cars and each 10 yuan, the market space for 20 million cars is 1 billion yuan, which is only the market space to replace resistance sensors such as automotive temperature sensors.

Generally speaking, the market space of sensitive components industry will increase to about 5 billion in the next five years from the current market space of about 0.85 billion yuan dominated by NTC products for household appliances (traditional NTC such as household appliances: 1 billion, NTC for consumer electronics: 1 billion, PTC heating components for automobiles: 2 billion yuan, NTC for automobiles: 1 billion yuan), with a growth space of about 6 times and a compound growth rate of more than 40% in the industry.