X-FAB and Soitec team up on SiC wafers

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X-FAB a global pure-play foundry leader, and Soitec, a leader in designing and manufacturing innovative semiconductor materials, will begin work to offer Soitec's SmartSiC™ wafers for the production of silicon carbide (SiC) power devices at X-FAB's plant in Lubbock, Texas.

www.eenewsembedded.com/, May. 23, 2024 – 

This collaboration follows the successful completion of the assessment phase, during which SiC power devices were manufactured at X-FAB Texas on 150mm SmartSiC™ wafers. Soitec will offer X-FAB's customers easy access to the SmartSiC™ substrate through a joint supply chain consignment model.

SmartSiC™ is a proprietary Soitec technology based on the company's SmartCut™ process, in which a thin layer of a high-quality monocrystalline (mono-SiC) 'donor' wafer is split off and bonded to a low resistivity polycrystalline (poly-SiC) 'handle' wafer. The resulting substrate offers improved device performance and manufacturing yields. The process allows multiple re-uses of a single donor wafer, significantly reducing cost and related CO2 emissions.

In this fast-growing market, Soitec is ramping production of SmartSiC™ substrates at its new plant of Bernin, near Grenoble (France). X-FAB is increasing production capacity for SiC devices at the Lubbock plant. The use of the SmartSiC™ substrate enables X-FAB's customers to design smaller devices, resulting in efficiency improvements through an increased number of dies per wafer. The benefit of reduced CO2 emissions from the substrate manufacturing process will also contribute to X-FAB's initiative to reduce its overall carbon footprint.

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