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This article delves into the usage and future trajectory of silicon carbide (SiC) boats in relation to quartz boats within the semiconductor industry, specifically focusing on their applications in solar cell manufacturing.

Defect-free epitaxial growth occurs when one crystal lattice has nearly identical lattice constants to another. Growth happens when lattice sites of the two lattices at the interface region are approximately matched, which is possible with a small lattice mismatch (less than 0.1%). This approximate matching is achieved even with elastic strain at the interface, where each atom is slightly displaced from its original position in the boundary layer. While a small amount of strain is tolerable for thin layers and even desirable for quantum well lasers, the strain energy stored in the crystal is generally lowered by the formation of misfit dislocations, which involve a missing row of atoms in one lattice.

The first generation of semiconductor materials is mainly represented by silicon (Si) and germanium (Ge), which began to rise in the 1950s. Germanium was dominant in the early days and was mainly used in low-voltage, low-frequency, medium-power transistors and photodetectors, but due to its poor high temperature resistance and radiation resistance, it was gradually replaced by silicon devices in the late 1960s. Silicon is still the main semiconductor material in the field of microelectronics due to its high technological maturity and cost advantages.

Silicon carbide (SiC) plays an important role in manufacturing power electronics and high-frequency devices due to its excellent electrical and thermal properties. The quality and doping level of SiC crystals directly affect the performance of the device, so precise control of doping is one of the key technologies in the SiC growth process.

Silicon carbide has a large number of applications in emerging industries and traditional industries. At present, the global semiconductor market has exceeded 100 billion yuan. It is expected that by 2025, the global sales of semiconductor manufacturing materials will reach 39.5 billion US dollars, of which the silicon carbide semiconductor market is expected to reach a market size of 2.5 billion US dollars in 2025. At the same time, silicon carbide is still the material with the best application performance in traditional ceramics, refractory, high temperature, grinding and other fields.

Every country is aware of the importance of chips and is now accelerating the construction of its own chip manufacturing supply chain ecosystem to prevent another chip shortage problem. But the advanced foundries without next-gen chip designers would be the same as “Fabs without Chips”.