A Mega Fab with a monthly output of 30,000 6-inch silicon carbide wafers is now complete and is ready for production.
Apparently it is 15,000 wafers/month capable. Not 30,000 wafers/month and they can't say if they are selling any. At a $2.5 billion cost, wondering how this is low cost.
compoundsemiconductor.net
In June this year, China-based Hunan Sanan Semiconductor opened the nation's first vertically integrated SiC line. Located in the Changsha high-tech industrial park, the $2.5 billion investment has, so far, taken less than a year to build and handles all wafer and device fabrication steps from crystal growth to power devices, packaging and testing.
“This is phase 1 of our site,” highlights Mrinal Das, Director, Technical Marketing and Sales at Sanan IC, which alongside Hunan Sanan, is a subsidiary of Sanan Optoelectronics. “At 15,000 wafers a month, we've brought half of its full capacity online... In phase 2 we will [build] a mirror image of phase one.”
“We have an aggressive plan to get the plant fully operational - meaning equipped to deliver 30,000 wafers a month by 2024,” he adds.
From here on in, Hunan Sanan's Changsha megafab will be delivering a mix of wafers and devices to Sanan IC, as well as other domestic and international customers. Describing the site as Sanan IC's 'captive' wide bandgap power semiconductor facility, Das won't be drawn on actually supply figures right now other than to say the facility is '15K a month capable'.
Currently built to churn out six inch SiC wafers, Das also expects to see eight inch wafers being produced come 2024. As he puts it: “My vision is that during phase 2, if there is enough demand, we will work on 8 inch wafers so that in 2024 we could probably [be producing] 15,000 six inch and 15,000 eight inch wafers.”
“After that, and if demand continues to rise in the next five to ten years, we will [scale] phase one and move to 30,000 eight inch wafers every month,” he says. “Our crystal growth team has put a lot of effort into our [wafer] technology and we have a lot of innovation through our patent filings in China and the US.”
Indeed, Sanan IC has been manufacturing SiC Schottky diodes for some time now and also has SiC MOSFETs under qualification - 1200 V devices are scheduled to be released soon. According to the Sanan IC Director, the figure of merits for substrates, epitaxy and devices are all 'achieving parity' with industry-best technology.
Das is also keen to emphasize that the organization also makes GaN-on-silicon devices for lower power applications. And as his Sanan IC colleague, Raymond Biagan, Senior Director, Sales and Marketing Communications - North America and Europe, highlights: “Our business model is to offer our entire manufacturing platform to the worldwide market.”
In the interim, Sanan Hunan will hire engineers locally and from further afield. “Engineers will predominantly come from a pool of domestic talent but there will also be a portion of technologists from Taiwan, China, Japan and internationally,” says Biagan.
Still, Sanan IC and Hunan Sanan are hardly operating in a vacuum. Recently, Cree, US, has poured $1 billion into its 200 mm SiC fabrication facility in Mohawk Valley, New York, while Rohm of Japan has just finished building its $190 million SiC wafer and device fab in Chikugo, Japan. US-based II-VI also intends to plough up to $50 million into its China SiC substrate manufacturing capacity and Infineon of Germany is set to increase SiC epitaxy wafer production.
However, Das - who worked at Cree and Wolfspeed for more than 16 years - reckons Sanan's China-based megafab gives the organisation an edge. “Wolfspeed, for example, has the biggest news on capacity expansion so far with their materials supply stretching from North Carolina to upstate New York, and with packaging typically at various Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test companies across Asia,” he says.
“But while the company is vertically integrated there is still this logistical challenge of moving their product through various stages globally, whereas we have a nice, compact, single site that is doing everything,” he adds.
Both Das and Biagan believe the Changsha site also sets up their company to more easily target the all-important electric and hybrid electric vehicle markets, in China.
“Analysts indicate that the hockey stick for wide bandgap materials will be automotive markets so it's been natural to headquarter in China where we can cater for its large automotive market in terms of logistics and quick time to market.” says Biagan. “Our parent company is already a major supplier of LED car lamps to the automotive industry here, and we can further appeal to that marketplace by delivering SiC and GaN domestically.”
Das and Biagan are also confident the burgeoning SiC industry has enough room for everyone. According to Das, the only competitor for all SiC players is silicon, and he and colleagues at Sanan IC and Hunan Sanan hope to work alongside the competition to enable the widespread adoption of wide bandgap materials.
Still as Biagan puts it: “Our aspiration is to be considered a major market shareholder in the SiC space that is today served by companies such as Wolfspeed and STMicroelectronics, and to be known as a brand globally.” |
