Power semis are where China's scale advantages bite hardest and where the collateral damage to Western incumbents is most visible. The playbook that hollowed out solar and batteries (captive demand, subsidized capacity, ruthless cost-down, then export the resulting deflation) is running in real time across IGBTs, MOSFETs, and silicon carbide. Wolfspeed, the company that invented the commercial SiC industry, went through Chapter 11 restructuring in 2025 while Chinese substrate makers crushed 6-inch wafer prices by an order of magnitude. And the Nexperia crisis of late 2025 demonstrated something new: China can weaponize its dominance of power semi packaging as effectively as Washington weaponizes lithography. This is simultaneously the most export-exposed and most geopolitically kinetic segment in our coverage.

The segment at a glance

Power semiconductors switch and convert electrical energy: discrete diodes, thyristors, and MOSFETs; IGBTs and IGBT modules for medium and high voltage; wide-bandgap (WBG) devices in silicon carbide (SiC MOSFETs, dominant in 800V EV traction) and gallium nitride (GaN, dominant in fast chargers and moving into data center power); plus power management ICs at the boundary with analog. The demand stack: automotive and mobility (the largest slice, driven by EV traction inverters and onboard chargers), industrial drives, renewables and storage (PV inverters, BESS), consumer, and the fast-rising newcomer, AI data center power delivery.