Reliability and cost/performance trade-offs are still a major limiting factor for GaN (gallium nitride) and SiC (silicon carbide) electronic device applications.
SiC substrates are therefore at the core of SiC power electronic device manufacturing as well as microwave GaN devices, as they are mostly grown on SiC substrates. Despite the fact that SiC material shows impressive thermal conductivities (up to 490 W/m•K, comparable to copper), today’s cost of SiC substrate is magnitudes more expensive than Si (silicon), which limits its market penetration.
By improving the thermal conductivity by 30%, new SiC substrates will increase the device performance (electrical, thermal, reliability) and boost interest in using SiC wafers, driving costs down. Moreover, a cost reduction by a factor 2 to 3 for microwave applications will also enable entry into these markets, with further increases in potential volumes. As this innovative substrate technology will be European-based, it will locally reinforce related industries in the semiconductor manufacturing eco-system.
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