Positioned as a counterpart to Germany’s "Industry 4.0", Made in China 2025 provides a comprehensive roadmap for the transformation, upgrading, and leapfrog development of China’s manufacturing industry. It outlines a "three-step" strategic goal to transform China from a large manufacturing country into a powerful one, clarifies the strategic tasks and priorities for building a manufacturing powerhouse, and serves as the first 10-year action plan for China’s manufacturing power strategy.

To ensure that China joins the ranks of manufacturing powerhouses by 2025 within a decade, it is imperative to advance overall progress while focusing on key breakthroughs. Centering on the major needs of economic and social development and national security, Made in China 2025 selects 10 advantageous and strategic industries as key focus areas, striving to achieve international leadership or advanced levels by 2025. The ten key fields are: next-generation information technology industry, high-end CNC machine tools and robots, aerospace equipment, marine engineering equipment and high-tech ships, advanced rail transit equipment, energy-saving and new energy vehicles, power equipment, agricultural equipment, new materials, and biopharmaceuticals and high-performance medical devices.

To clarify the development trends and priorities of these ten key fields and guide corporate innovation, the National Strategy Advisory Committee for Building a Manufacturing Powerhouse organized the compilation of technology roadmaps for these fields, which were compiled into a volume called the Technology Roadmap for Key Fields of Made in China 2025.

As a core component and key technology of modern energy conversion, power electronics plays an irreplaceable role in the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, energy conservation and new energy, national defense security, and national economy and people’s livelihoods. Therefore, power electronics is officially identified as a key development area in Made in China 2025. In the recently released Technology Roadmap for Key Fields of Made in China 2025, the content related to power electronics is mainly reflected in the following chapters:

V. Advanced Rail Transit Equipment

5.1 Advanced Rail Transit Equipment

5.1.3 Development Priorities

2. Key Components

(1) Power Semiconductor Devices. Focus on breaking through the technical bottlenecks of advanced power semiconductor device chips such as silicon-based IGBTs and MOSFETs, and promote the application and industrial development of domestic silicon-based devices; advance the R&D and industrialization of next-generation power semiconductor devices such as silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN).

(2) Power-type Supercapacitor Devices. Develop high-power, high-energy, long-life, high-safety, and maintenance-free supercapacitor cells with specifications of 12,000F, 3.0V, 10Wh/kg, and 1 million charge-discharge cycles, and promote the industrialization of energy storage-type electric traction technology for urban public transport.

3. Key Generic Technologies

(3) Electric Drive System Technology. Complete the R&D and application of SiC power electronic devices, promote the application of regenerative bidirectional converter technology; popularize permanent magnet motor drive technology and gearless direct drive technology.

(4) Energy Storage and Energy-saving Technology. Accelerate the development of supercapacitors with high energy density, and leverage the excellent charge-discharge performance of supercapacitors to realize grid-independent operation and energy recyclable operation of trams and trolleybuses across the entire line.

IX. New Materials

9.2 Key Strategic Materials

9.2.3 Development Priorities

8. Advanced Semiconductor Materials

(1) Third-generation Semiconductor Single Crystal Substrates

Preparation technology for 6- to 8-inch SiC, 4- to 6-inch GaN, and 2- to 3-inch AlN single crystal substrates; domestic equipment capable of producing large-size, high-quality third-generation semiconductor single crystal substrates.

(2) Third-generation Semiconductor Optoelectronic Devices, Modules and Applications

Preparation technology for LED epitaxial wafers and chips with luminous efficacy above 200 lm/W; AlGaN-based ultraviolet LEDs with power above 50mW.

(3) Third-generation Semiconductor Power Electronic Devices, Modules and Applications

Key preparation technologies for SiC power electronic devices above 15kV; design and preparation of high-quality, low-cost GaN power electronic devices; applications in high-voltage power grids, high-speed rail transit, consumer electronics, new energy vehicles, and next-generation general power supplies.

We are pleased to see that power electronics has been clearly identified as a key development area in this national strategic programmatic document, which is closely related to the active suggestions put forward by industry experts and the substantial development of the power electronics industry in recent years. However, we should also clearly recognize that compared with integrated circuits, power electronics still has a relatively small weight in the document. In Chapter I "Next-generation Information Technology Industry", "1.1 Integrated Circuits and Special Equipment" is elaborated as a dedicated section, while the content on power electronics is scattered across several chapters without systematic support.

At the "2015 Annual Meeting and the Second Session of the Seventh Council of the Power Electronics Branch of China Electrical Equipment Industry Association" held in Chongqing on November 6, Mr. Xiao Xiangfeng, Executive Vice Chairman of the Branch, Secretary-General of the China IGBT Technology Innovation and Industry Alliance, and Secretary-General of the China Wide Bandgap Power Semiconductor Industry Alliance, stated: "The content on power electronics is scattered across several chapters of the document. It seems that power electronics is needed everywhere, but in fact, it does not receive systematic support like integrated circuits, which is not conducive to forming synergy. At the same time, the supported focus is on power electronic devices such as IGBTs and MOSFETs used in the rail transit field, which account for only a very small part of the entire industry, less than 5%."

However, Secretary-General Xiao also believes that the inclusion of power electronics in the key development areas of Made in China 2025 is a great opportunity. Moreover, most of the ten key development fields also require power electronics. Therefore, colleagues in the industry should seize this opportunity, adhere to the philosophy of "people-oriented, innovation-driven, structural optimization, transformation and upgrading, quality-oriented, and green development", and work together to expand and strengthen the power electronics industry, contributing their part to the realization of the strategic goals of Made in China 2025.