ON Semiconductor Pune Centre Targets India's EV Power Semiconductor Supply Chain
ON Semiconductor, known commercially as onsemi, has opened its first dedicated India chip design centre in Pune, Maharashtra, staffed by 300 engineers focused exclusively on power semiconductor development for electric vehicle applications. The centre's programme scope covers three product categories: silicon carbide MOSFET gate driver ICs that provide the interface circuitry between the control microcontroller and the high-voltage SiC switching transistors in EV traction inverters; intelligent power modules that integrate SiC MOSFETs with gate drivers and protection circuits into a single thermally managed package for EV drivetrain applications; and onboard charger control ICs that manage the power conversion from AC grid power to DC battery charging voltage in the onboard charger unit installed in electric vehicles. All three categories are directly relevant to the EV platforms being developed by Indian automakers, and onsemi has established co-development partnerships with Tata Motors and Mahindra to ensure that the Pune centre's design work is aligned with the specific technical requirements of Indian EV architectures.
SiC Gate Driver Design and the Inverter Efficiency Challenge
Silicon carbide MOSFETs can switch at switching frequencies ten times higher than equivalent silicon IGBTs, enabling smaller magnetic components and higher efficiency in EV traction inverters. However, the fast switching of SiC transistors creates extremely rapid voltage and current transitions that generate electromagnetic interference and can damage the transistors if not properly controlled. Gate driver ICs manage the switching behaviour of SiC transistors by controlling the gate voltage slew rate, providing overcurrent protection, and implementing desaturation detection that prevents transistor destruction under fault conditions. Designing gate drivers for SiC applications requires understanding of both high-voltage analogue circuit design and the specific electrical characteristics of SiC devices that differ from silicon in ways that make silicon gate driver designs inadequate. The Pune team's focus on SiC gate driver development positions onsemi to capture a share of the gate driver market that will grow rapidly as SiC adoption in Indian EV drivetrains accelerates over the next three years.
India EV Market Context and onsemi's Market Position
India has emerged as the world's third-largest EV market by annual units sold, driven by aggressive incentive schemes, rising fuel prices, and the commercial success of two- and three-wheel electric vehicles that represent the largest volume segment of India's EV adoption. The semiconductor content of electric vehicles is three to five times that of equivalent internal combustion engine vehicles, making India's EV growth a major semiconductor demand driver. onsemi holds a strong global position in SiC power semiconductors through its EliteSiC platform and is competing with Infineon, STMicroelectronics, and Wolfspeed for the SiC design wins that will define the power semiconductor supply chain for Indian EV platforms over the coming decade. The Pune design centre, by co-developing reference designs directly with Tata Motors and Mahindra, creates customer intimacy that is essential for winning these design-in competitions, where proximity and application support capability are as important as device specifications.
Intelligent Power Module Strategy and Local Manufacturing
onsemi's intelligent power module products, which integrate multiple SiC MOSFETs with gate drivers, current sensing, temperature sensing, and protection circuits into a thermally managed package, are designed to reduce the component count and assembly complexity of EV inverter designs by replacing discrete component implementations with a single module solution. The Pune centre is developing IPM variants specifically sized for the motor power ratings of Indian EV platforms, which differ from European and American EV drivetrains in prioritising efficiency at the lower power levels of two-wheeler and three-wheeler traction motors. onsemi is also evaluating whether its IPM products could be packaged at a domestic India OSAT facility in the medium term, which would reduce the lead time for deliveries to Indian customers and potentially qualify the products for domestic content benefits under India's EV PLI scheme.
