China IC Single Crystal Silicon Manufacturers, Suppliers, Factory

Silicon material is a solid material with certain semiconductor electrical properties and physical stability, and provides substrate support for the subsequent integrated circuit manufacturing process. It is a key material for silicon-based integrated circuits. More than 95% of semiconductor devices and more than 90% of integrated circuits in the world are made on silicon wafers.

A P-type silicon carbide (SiC) wafer is a semiconductor substrate that is doped with impurities to create a P-type (positive) conductivity. Silicon carbide is a wide-bandgap semiconductor material that offers exceptional electrical and thermal properties, making it suitable for high-power and high-temperature electronic devices.

The Silicon Carbide (SiC) production process encompasses the preparation of substrate and epitaxy from the materials side, followed by chip design and manufacturing, device packaging, and finally, distribution to downstream application markets. Among these stages, substrate material processing is the most challenging aspect of the SiC industry. SiC substrates are both hard and brittle, making cutting, grinding, and polishing extremely difficult. This increases the likelihood of defects during processing and reduces the yield rate. Currently, major international SiC manufacturers are planning to transition from 6-inch to 8-inch SiC wafers. Overcoming the challenges associated with 8-inch substrates has become a critical benchmark for the SiC industry. This article will introduce the key parameters of SiC substrates.

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.

We know that further epitaxial layers need to be built on top of some wafer substrates for device fabrication, typically LED light-emitting devices, which require GaAs epitaxial layers on top of silicon substrates; SiC epitaxial layers are grown on top of conductive SiC substrates for building devices such as SBDs, MOSFETs, etc. for high voltage, high current and other power applications; GaN epitaxial layers are built on top of semi-insulating SiC substrates for building HEMTs and other RF applications.

Heat treatment is one of the essential and important processes in the semiconductor process. Thermal process is the process of applying thermal energy to a wafer by placing it in an environment filled with a specific gas, including oxidation/diffusion/annealing, etc.