Microwave Journal
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Sanan IC Releases 6-Inch SiC Foundry Process

December 19, 2018

Pure-play semiconductor foundry Sanan Integrated Circuit Company (Sanan IC) has released a 6-inch silicon carbide (SiC) process to its foundry services portfolio, following full process qualification for commercial release.

Sanan IC’s SiC process currently offers Schottky diodes with 650, 1200 V and higher-rated diodes. A SiC MOSFET process will also be released, offering 900, 1200 V and higher voltage devices. To ensure consistent supply, Sanan IC has dedicated capacity for SiC wafer processing.

SiC Overtaking Silicon for Power Electronics

According to Sanan, SiC technology has emerged as the most mature wide bandgap semiconductor technology for circuit designs in power electronics. SiC achieves higher efficiency, increased power density, higher switching frequency, higher temperature operation, higher breakdown and more compact and lighter system designs than silicon devices.

In electric and hybrid vehicles, SiC is being used in the on-board charger, power train inverters and DC/DC converters. Non-automotive applications include photovoltaic solar cells, industrial motor drives and power factor correction for enterprise server and telecom base station power supplies.

Technology market research firm Yole Développement forecasts the SiC power device market to grow to more than $1.5 billion by 2023, which represents a compound annual growth rate of 31 percent from 2017 to 2023.

“We see tremendous business opportunities in serving the high growth power electronics market, with SiC displacing silicon solutions due to its higher efficiency, higher switching frequency and higher temperature characteristics. The enormous growth of the automotive, big data, renewable clean energy and power utility industries has created opportunities for us to offer SiC foundry services to the global market.” — Raymond Cai, CEO of Sanan IC

China’s First 6-Inch Compound Semi Foundry

Founded in 2014, Sanan IC is China’s first 6-inch compound semiconductor wafer foundry, serving the global microelectronics and photonics markets. Sanan IC is based in Xiamen City in the Fujian province.

Sanan IC offers GaAs, GaN, SiC, and InP process technologies and is certified to the ISO9001 quality and ISO14001 environmental management standards.