Semiconductors and Electric Vehicle Wars
Alex Capri · 2024
Today electric vehicle (EV) makers are working directly with chip suppliers. EVs will accelerate the United States–China technology race and its impact on cross-border research and development collaboration in the private sector, academia and government-controlled institutions. Taiwanese company Foxconn supports Kneron's work on an open-sourced platform for EV-related software and hardware. For Kneron and similar companies, open-sourcing parts of the EV–semiconductor innovation process could inoculate them from the effects of export controls and restrictions. The shortage of silicon-based microchips during the COVID-19 pandemic and then again for restricted entities subject to export controls has accelerated the search for alternatives to the conventional silicon chip. Two contenders have emerged for chips in EVs: silicon carbide and gallium nitride. Gallium nitrogen chips are even more energy efficient than silicon carbide.