China monocrystalline silicon production Manufacturers, Suppliers, Factory

The recent announcement of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics has brought unprecedented attention to the field of artificial intelligence.

The push for higher power density and efficiency has become a primary driver of innovation across multiple industries, including data centers, renewable energy, consumer electronics, electric vehicles, and autonomous driving technologies. In the realm of wide bandgap (WBG) materials, Gallium Nitride (GaN) and Silicon Carbide (SiC) are currently the two core platforms, viewed as pivotal tools leading power semiconductor innovation. These materials are profoundly transforming the power electronics industry to address the ever-increasing demand for power.

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”.

The application areas of SiC-based and Si-based GaN are not strictly separated. In GaN-On-SiC devices, the cost of SiC substrate is relatively high, and with the growing maturity of SiC long crystal technology, the cost of the device is expected to fall further, and it is used in power devices in the field of power electronics.

SiC substrate material is the core of SiC chip. The production process of the substrate is: after obtaining the SiC crystal ingot through single crystal growth; then preparing the SiC substrate requires smoothing, rounding, cutting, grinding (thinning); mechanical polishing, chemical mechanical polishing; and cleaning, testing, etc. Process

Currently, many semiconductor devices employ mesa device structures, which are predominantly created through two types of etching: wet etching and dry etching. While the simple and rapid wet etching plays a significant role in semiconductor device fabrication, it has inherent drawbacks such as isotropic etching and poor uniformity, which result in limited control when transferring small-sized patterns. Dry etching, however, with its high anisotropy, good uniformity, and repeatability, has become prominent in semiconductor device fabrication processes. The term “dry etching” broadly refers to any non-wet etching technology used for removing surface materials and transferring micro and nano patterns, including laser etching, plasma etching, and chemical vapor etching. The dry etching discussed in this text specifically pertains to the narrow application of processes using plasma discharge—either physical or chemical—to modify material surfaces.