X-FAB drives industry’s transition into 6-in. SiC production
Erfurt, Germany. X-FAB Silicon Foundries said is putting itself at the vanguard of wide-bandgap semiconductor production by announcing the availability of its silicon carbide (SiC) offering from its wafer fab in Lubbock, TX.
Thanks to major internal investments in the conversion of capital equipment, as well as the support provided by the PowerAmerica Institute at NC State University, X-FAB Texas has upgraded its manufacturing resources in order to make them “SiC-ready.” Among the tools now added are a high-temperature anneal furnace, backgrind equipment for thinning SiC wafers, and backside metal-sputter and backside laser-anneal tools. A high-temperature implanter is scheduled for installation later this year. X-FAB can, as a result, now fully leverage the economies of scale that are already available in its established 30k wafer-per-month silicon line, thereby presenting the market with the means to produce large volumes of SiC devices on 6-in. wafers.
As well as X-FAB’s 6-inch wafer capabilities, other key differentiators need to be factored into the SiC equation. Among these will be higher yields and accelerated ramp-up to full-scale production, plus the company’s decades of experience in manufacturing semiconductor devices that adhere to stringent quality standards, such as those for automotive applications. Not only will X-FAB supply fabless semiconductor vendors, the company will also be positioned to serve as a second source solution for IDMs with their own SiC manufacturing.
“Current SiC offerings are either IDMs creating their own products or relatively small foundry operations using 4-in. production facilities,” stated Andy Wilson, X-FAB’s director of strategic business development. “X-FAB is bringing something different to the market, with a SiC capacity of 5k wafers/month ready to utilize and potential to raise this further. We can thus offer a scalable, high quality, secure platform that will enable customers to cost-effectively obtain discrete devices on SiC substrates and also safely apply vital differentiation.”
X-FAB is an analog/mixed-signal and MEMS foundry group manufacturing silicon wafers for automotive, industrial, consumer, medical, and other applications. It offers modular CMOS processes in geometries ranging from 1.0 to 0.18 µm as well as its special BCD, SOI, and MEMS long-lifetime processes. X-FAB’s analog-digital integrated circuits (mixed-signal ICs), sensors, and MEMS are manufactured at five production facilities in Germany, Malaysia, and the U.S. X-FAB employs more than 2,500 people worldwide.
