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News Article

SDK nearly triples output of 150mm SiC Wafers

Company also to start shipping a new grade of SiC epitaxial wafers with fewer defects

Showa Denko (SDK) has increased its capacity to produce 150mm SiC epitaxial wafers from 400 units a month to 1,100 units a month. SDK has also increased its total capacity for 100mm SiC wafers from 1,500 units to 2,500 units a month, an increase of about 60 percent from the previous level. In addition SDK will start shipping a new grade of SiC epitaxial wafers with fewer defects and higher uniformity in this October.

When compared with the mainstream silicon-based semiconductors, SiC power devices using SiC epitaxial wafers can operate under relatively high-temperature, high-voltage and heavy-current conditions, while substantially reducing energy loss.

Inverters based on SiC power devices are already used in such applications as power sources for servers in data centres, decentralised power generation systems utilising new energy sources, and subway railcars. Moreover, some car manufacturers and their suppliers recently announced to use SiC-power-device-based inverters in electric vehicles and hybrid cars. 

SDK has so far been producing and selling 76.2mm, 100mm and 150mm SiC epitaxial wafers. In order to increase the supply of 150mm wafers, which can help increase productivity of power device manufacturers, SDK introduced additional chemical vapour deposition (CVD) equipment which can be applied to the production of all sizes of SiC epitaxial wafers in our lineup. This new equipment improves epitaxial-wafer productivity by about 30 percent, and will help further reduce power-device production costs.

The demand for SiC-based power control modules with heavier withstanding currents is also now growing for use in automobiles, power generation facilities, power transmission facilities and high-speed trains. To meet these requests, SiC chips need to be bigger.

In order to prevent deterioration of yield rates in production of large-sized SiC chips from epitaxial wafers, SDK will start sales of a new grade of SiC epitaxial wafers with fewer surface defects (0.5 defects/cm2 on the surface of current grade wafers versus 0.25 defects/cm2 on the surface of new grade wafers) this October.

According to SDK, the new grade products will enable customers to expect yield rates improvement for more than 10 percent in production of large SiC chips for the above applications (this is an estimated value for the production of large SiC chips within the range of 7mm2 to 10mm2).


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