SiC Power Fabs

Boule growth

SiC Supply Is Set by How Fast a Crystal Grows

Silicon pulls from a melt at 1 to 3 millimeters a minute. Silicon carbide does not melt at usable pressures, so it grows by physical vapor transport (PVT) at about 0.3 to 0.5 millimeters an hour, near 2,400 degrees Celsius.

A 300mm silicon boule takes about two days; a 150mm or 200mm SiC boule takes one to two weeks and comes out short. Faster methods such as top-seeded solution growth and high-temperature CVD are in development, but none has replaced PVT at volume. Device fabs can be built in two to three years; the substrate capacity to feed them has to be ordered earlier, which is why Wolfspeed, ST, onsemi and Rohm have all integrated back into substrates.

Substrate defects, micropipes, basal plane dislocations and screw dislocations, kill more dies than in silicon, so SiC yields run well below silicon and cleaner substrates are the main yield lever.

Four tiers

The Four-Tier SiC Supply Chain

Boule growth is held by about 10 companies worldwide and is the bottleneck. Epitaxy splits between merchant suppliers such as Resonac and captive lines at the large device makers. Device fabrication is the widest tier, with about 15 makers, including BYD, which makes SiC for its own vehicles.

150 to 200mm

The Move From 150mm to 200mm Wafers

A 200mm wafer has 1.78 times the area of a 150mm wafer and yields about twice the dies after edge losses. TrendForce expects 150mm substrates to dominate shipments in the near term after steep price cuts, with 200mm passing 20% of shipments by 2030.

Wolfspeed and China

Wolfspeed Restructured as Chinese Substrates Scaled

Wolfspeed spent heavily on Mohawk Valley and the John Palmour Manufacturing Center in Siler City while EV demand slowed and Chinese substrate prices fell. It filed for Chapter 11 in June 2025 and emerged on September 29, 2025. Debt holders, including Renesas, which had lent $2 billion, took most of the new equity. Wolfspeed then closed its Durham 150mm device fab and moved all device production to Mohawk Valley.

China's suppliers moved the other way. TanKeBlue and SICC rose to second and third in substrate revenue in 2024, SICC leads the move to 200mm substrates, and Chinese device makers including BYD and the Sanan-ST joint venture in Chongqing feed China's EV makers. Global substrate revenue fell 9% in 2024 to $1.04 billion as prices dropped.

Wolfspeed's history is on the Wolfspeed spotlight.

SiC fabs

SiC Fabs and US Production Status

The United States makes SiC at every tier: substrates at Wolfspeed Siler City and Coherent Easton, and devices at Wolfspeed Mohawk Valley, with Bosch Roseville starting up.

• Made in US
• Some US volume
• Made abroad

Products

SiC Products

• Schottky diodes: the oldest SiC product, used in power factor correction and rectification; every SiC maker sells them.
• MOSFETs: the growth product, at 650V (solar, server power), 1,200V (800-volt EV traction), 1,700V (energy storage, industrial) and 3.3kV (rail, drives). Rohm and Infineon make trench MOSFETs; Wolfspeed and ST have used planar designs.
• Modules: half-bridge and three-phase assemblies for traction inverters and energy storage converters.

Demand

EVs Lead Demand, and Nine Markets Share One Substrate Supply

SiC entered volume when Tesla put ST SiC MOSFETs in the Model 3 traction inverter. 800-volt platforms such as the Porsche Taycan, Hyundai E-GMP and many Chinese EVs depend on SiC, because silicon IGBTs lose too much at 800 volts. Energy storage, solar inverters, industrial drives, chargers, data center power, rail and grid links draw on the same substrate supply, so a surge in one tightens all of them. The SiC Nine Markets spotlight follows each one; electric vehicle inverters are on ElectronsX.

Related coverage

Related Coverage

• SiC Substrates and Epiwafers
• SiC and GaN Power Modules
• Wolfspeed
• SiC Nine Markets
• GaN Power and RF Fabs