Power Semis Usher In The Silicon Carbide Era


Silicon carbide production is ramping quickly, driven by end market demand in automotive and price parity with silicon. Many thousands of power semiconductor modules already are in use in electric vehicles for on-board charging, traction inversion, and DC-to-DC conversion. Today, most of those are fabricated using silicon-based IGBTs. A shift to silicon carbide-based MOSFETs doubles the powe... » read more

Equipment Suppliers Brace For GaN Market Explosion


A huge GaN market is opening up, driven by consumer devices and the need for greater energy efficiency across many applications. Suppliers are ready, but to fully compete with SiC in high-voltage automotive applications will require further technological developments in power GaN (gallium nitride). Still, the 2020s mark a very high-growth phase for GaN markets. Revenues in the power GaN mark... » read more

How Quickly Can SiC Ramp?


Device makers across the globe are ramping silicon carbide (SiC) manufacturing, with growth set to really take off starting in 2024. It’s been almost five years since Tesla and STMicroelectronics threw down the gauntlet with SiC in the Model 3. Now, no one doubts the market pull for electric vehicles, but consumers are still clamoring for better range and faster charging. SiC devices are a... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Packaging ASE, AMD, Arm, Google, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Samsung, and TSMC have announced the formation of a consortium that will establish a die-to-die interconnect standard and foster an open chiplet ecosystem. The founding companies also ratified the UCIe specification, an open industry standard developed to establish a standard interconnect at the package level. The UCIe 1.0 s... » read more

SiC Foundry Business Emerges


Several third-party foundry vendors are entering or expanding their efforts in the silicon carbide (SiC) business amid booming demand for the technology. However, making a significant dent in the market will not be so easy for SiC foundry vendors and their customers. They are facing stiff competition from traditional SiC device vendors such as Cree, Infineon, Rohm and STMicroelectronics. ... » read more