II-VI to expand SiC capacity in Pennsylvania and Sweden
II‐VI Incorporated says that the company is accelerating its investment in 150 mm and 200 mm SiC substrate and epitaxial wafer manufacturing with large-scale factory expansions in Easton, Pennsylvania, and Kista, Sweden.
This is part of the company’s previously announced USD 1 billion investment in SiC over the next 10 years. In April last year, the company expanded its SiC wafer finishing manufacturing footprint in China.
To meet the accelerating global demand for SiC power electronics, II-VI says it will significantly build out its nearly 300,000 square foot factory in Easton, Pennsylvania to scale up the production of its 150 mm and 200 mm SiC substrates and epitaxial wafers. The company says in a press release that the facility's 150 mm and 200 mm SiC substrate output is expected to reach the equivalent of 1 million 150 mm substrates annually by 2027 – with the proportion of 200 mm substrates growing over time.
The expansion of the epitaxial wafer capacity in Kista – which the company has not specified – is aimed at serving the European market.
“Our customers are accelerating their plans to intersect the anticipated tidal wave of demand for SiC power electronics in electric vehicles that we expect will come right behind the current adoption cycle in industrial, renewable energy, datacenters, and more,” says Sohail Khan, Executive Vice President, New Ventures & Wide-Bandgap Electronics Technologies in the press release.
Sohail Khan continues to say that the Easton factory will increase II-VI’s production of SiC substrates by at least a factor of six over the next five years, and also become the company's flagship manufacturing center for 200 mm SiC epitaxial wafers.
