Chipmakers' quest for wafers supply affirms SiC adoption

Renesas signing a 10-year supply agreement with Wolfspeed for silicon carbide (SiC) bare and epitaxial wafers is another stark reminder of an industry-wide transition from silicon to SiC semiconductor power devices across multiple high-volume applications spanning electric vehicles (EVs), renewable energy and storage, charging infrastructure, industrial power supplies, and traction and variable speed drives.

What’s also worth noting is that Renesas will make a deposit of $2 billion to secure the supply in this multi-decade agreement starting in 2025. This $2 billion deposit will support Wolfspeed’s ongoing capacity-building projects, including John Palmour Manufacturing Center for Silicon Carbide or the JP, the world’s largest SiC materials plant in Chatham County, North Carolina. The JP is targeted to generate a more than 10-fold increase from Wolfspeed’s current SiC production capacity in its Durham, North Carolina facility.

That also means that while Wolfspeed will start providing Renesas with 150-mm SiC bare and epitaxial wafers in 2025, the arrangement will eventually expand to 200-mm wafers when the JP is fully operational. And it’s not the only multi-year, multi-country arrangement expanding from 150-mm to 200-mm SiC wafers.

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A couple of months ago, Infineon signed a pact with Chinese SiC materials supplier TanKeBlue to secure additional SiC wafers. While the agreement will focus on 150-mm SiC material in the first phase, TanKeBlue will also provide 200-mm SiC material to support Infineon’s transition to 200-mm wafers. Likewise, Qorvo has recently finalized a multi-year supply agreement for SiC bare and epitaxial wafers with SK Siltron CSS, a semiconductor wafer manufacturer based in South Korea.

The multi-year aspect of these deals underscores that SiC semiconductor suppliers are confident of SiC adoption in automotive, industrial, and energy markets. As a result, they are keen to ensure a stable, long-term supply base of high-quality SiC wafers. The second revelation from these announcements is the keenly awaited transition from 150-mm to 200-mm SiC wafers, as it will translate into more chips per wafer and thus lower device costs.

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