Japanese chipmaker Resonac Corp. and semiconductor materials vendor Soitec are collaborating to accelerate electric vehicle (EV) migration to silicon carbide adoption.
Under a new agreement, the companies will develop 200 mm SmartSiC wafers using Resonac substrates and epitaxy processes for use in Soitec’s high-yielding SiC technology.
SmartSiC is a compound semiconductor material that improves performance and efficiency over traditional silicon in electric mobility and industrial applications. The technology offers efficient power conversion, lighter and compact designs and system cost savings, the companies said.
These SiC wafers are produced using Soitec’s SmartCut technology to bond an ultra-fine layer of mono SiC “donor” wafer to a low-resistivity polycrystalline “handle” wafer. The result is a substrate that is an improvement in performance and yields over traditional manufacturing, the companies said.
The technology allows for re-uses of the prime quality mono-SiC wafer to reduce energy consumption in manufacturing. Soitec said its new plant in Bernin, France, will be dedicated to producing SmartSiC wafers for EVs, renewable energy and industrial applications.
Why it matters
Wide bandgap technologies are growing significantly due to their expanded use in power electronics as well as applications like electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy sources like solar and wind.
For the past two years, semiconductor vendors that are developing GaN, SiC and other wide bandgap technologies have been rapidly expanding their future semiconductor manufacturing capacity in anticipation that these markets are only going to continue to grow. As a result, the wide bandgap market has seen considerable investments from all the major players to ensure future capacity or provide future capacity for use by automotive OEMs and energy companies.
