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Silicon carbide epitaxy market, the market trends we see
Original Silicon carbide core observation2023-09-19 20:55117
September 18 – AIXTRON announced that it will support GlobiTech Inc., one of the world’s largest silicon epitaxial wafer foundries, to expand its business into the silicon carbide (SiC) epitaxy field. AIXTRON's new equipment G10 will accelerate GlobiTech's increase in SiC epitaxy production to meet the growing global demand for power epitaxy wafers.
This news also quickly attracted market attention in the industry. As GlobiTech joins hands with AIXTRON to enter the silicon carbide epitaxy market, we can see that the industry is changing:
A clear signal of long-term trends in the silicon carbide
Increasing production and reducing costs will be the mainstream of the market
For a long time, the epitaxial equipment in the domestic silicon carbide market has been dominated by single-wafer furnaces with high stability and simple operation. The representative model is the Pe106/108 of the Italian LPE company. This machine can realize automatic loading and unloading of wafers at high temperatures of 900°C. The main features are high growth rate, short epitaxial cycle, good consistency within the chip and between heats, etc., and it has the highest market share in the domestic market.
In the domestic market, companies such as Jingsheng Electromechanical, China Electronics Technology Institute 48, Northern Huachuang, and Nashe Intelligence have all developed monolithic SiC epitaxy equipment with similar functions and promoted large-scale applications. The horizontal epitaxy of the above four companies The furnaces have been shipped on a large scale.
According to InSemi's incomplete research and comprehensive market information from various companies, with stable and reliable process performance, the domestic monolithic furnace market stock has accumulated to more than 450 units . In addition, each company still has a large number of orders to be delivered. It can be said that single-chip computers are still the mainstream in the current market.
However, with the gradual increase in downstream applications, the pace of domestic and foreign silicon carbide production capacity expansion has accelerated, and the demand for silicon carbide epitaxy expansion has further increased. There have been more than 15 epitaxy projects in the domestic market alone.
As the demand for production expansion increases, the shortcomings of the output capacity of single-chip microcomputers gradually become apparent. According to LPE, the monthly production capacity of microcontrollers is only 350 pieces/month. Therefore, the market is also constantly exploring other technical routes to improve production capacity.
G10 came into being, a new epitaxy system launched by AIXTRON in September 2022. It is understood that this high-temperature CVD system is a 150/200 mm high-throughput epitaxial equipment (dual wafer size batch reactor) for the SiC market.
So what are his advantages?
G10-SiC new platform
Supports dual wafer sizes: 150 mm and 200 mm
Highest wafer throughput/square meter on the market
Lowest cost/wafer on the market
Excellent run-to-run process performance
Highly uniform, low-defect SiC epitaxy process to achieve maximum chip yield
Efficient SiC substrate basal plane dislocation (BPD) conversion
The new platform is built around AIXTRON’s proven automated cassette-to-cassette loading solutions and high-temperature wafer transfer. Combined with high growth rate process capabilities, G10-SiC provides best-in-class wafer throughput and throughput per square meter to efficiently utilize limited cleanroom space in semiconductor fabs.
To put it simply, G10 is produced for large-scale mass production of silicon carbide epitaxial wafers.
Of course, in addition to G10, the progress of quasi-hot wall vertical CVD systems this year has also attracted market attention. According to Xinsandai, a domestic mass manufacturer of quasi-hot wall vertical CVD systems, the company has closely combined processes and equipment to develop SiC -CVD equipment is designed in aspects such as temperature field control and flow field control to achieve high productivity, 6/8-inch compatibility, COO cost, long-term continuous automatic growth control for multiple furnaces, low defect rate, maintenance convenience and reliability, etc. It has obvious advantages in all aspects.
Based on the current diversification of epitaxy technology routes, we can also see several trends:
1. Substrate costs are gradually decreasing
Previously, in the early days of the industry, the main reason why AIXTRON machines were not widely adopted by the market was not only the high price of the machines themselves, but also the fact that multi-chip machines had certain process difficulties and were difficult to operate, which easily resulted in the failure of one epitaxial wafer in a multi-chip furnace. The problem is that multiple pieces cannot be used before they grow well. At that time, the price of domestic substrates was at a high level, and domestic companies did not dare to use multi-chip machines for mass production due to cost considerations. The current resumption of G10 enthusiasm shows that the cost of domestic substrates has changed to a certain extent, and epitaxy companies can further try to use multi-chip machines for mass production.
2. Competition in extension links intensifies
Since the beginning of this year, there have been many new entrants in the extension sector. Domestic leading companies such as Hantian and Tianyu have reached a far leading level in production capacity planning focusing on horizontal machines. What subsequent new entrants will face in the future is There are multiple dimensions of competition in terms of technology, customers, products, etc., but the most important thing is cost competition. If the same technical route is gradually iterated, it will be too difficult to catch up with the gap with the industry leader. Therefore, whether it is vertical machines or multi-chip machines, the market's diversified technical routes also allow new entrants to see opportunities for misaligned competition.
3. Using multi-chip processors for epitaxy OEM may be a good business
According to GlobiTech, one of the world’s largest silicon epitaxial wafer foundries, the company has begun high-volume production with G5WW C and G10-SiC systems and will continue to expand installed capacity and supply carbonization to the market over the next few years. silicon products. According to our research information, a domestic foundry company is also verifying the stability and output of G10, which will be used for mass production on the production line.
It is understood that the current selling price of G10 machines is more than twice that of LPE and other horizontal structure machines. If the cost needs to be amortized, the company needs to have large-scale mass production capabilities. At present, epitaxy foundry companies are more capable of using multi-chip machines. rationality.
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