ST Secures SiC Substrate Supply With New Italian Facility

The COVID 19 pandemic has caused many manufacturers to rethink their operational strategies. The disruption of the supply chain that the pandemic caused has made them take stock and ask themselves the best way to guarantee the supply of materials that they need. As massive growth is expected in some areas, especially those requiring specialist materials, such as silicon carbide (SiC), manufacturers don’t want to miss out on a second wave of opportunity and are moving to secure the base materials that they need. For example, Infineon has signed a multi-year supply agreement for SiC wafers with II-VI Incorporated. Last year, the company also signed a supply contract with Japanese wafer manufacturer Showa Denko K.K. for a range of SiC material including epitaxy. Some companies have gone even further and brought the complete supply chain in-house to have control of the whole process. Onsemi has done this with the acquisition of SiC producer, GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT).

STMicroelectronics is the latest company to try to ensure the supply of SiC materials, but it has decided to go it alone by building an integrated SiC epitaxial substrate manufacturing facility in Italy, the first of its kind in Europe. The new manufacturing facility will support increasing demand from ST’s customers for SiC devices for automotive and industrial applications. Production at the new plant is expected to start next year, and it will bring a supply of SiC substrates for both internal and merchant supply.

The facility will be built at ST’s Catania site in Italy alongside the company’s existing SiC device manufacturing facility. It will initially produce 150mm SiC epitaxial substrates in volume, integrating all steps in the production flow. Further down the line, ST will develop 200mm wafers. This project is intended to advance ST’s vertical integration strategy for its SiC business. The investment of €730 million over five years will be supported financially by the State of Italy in the framework of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and it will create around 700 direct additional jobs at full build-out.

“We are expanding our operations in Catania, the centre of our power semiconductor expertise and where we already have integrated research, development and manufacturing of SiC with strong collaboration with Italian research entities, universities and suppliers” said Jean-Marc Chery, President and Chief Executive Officer of STMicroelectronics. “This new facility will be key to our vertical integration in SiC, reinforcing our SiC substrate supply as we further ramp up volumes to support our automotive and industrial customers in their shift to electrification and higher efficiency”.

Catania is an important site for innovation for ST as the home of SiC R&D and manufacturing operations, contributing new solutions for producing more and better SiC devices. With an established eco-system on power electronics, including a long-term, successful collaboration between ST and other stakeholders, and large network of suppliers, this investment will strengthen Catania’s role as a global competence centre for SiC technology.

ST’s STPOWER SiC products are currently manufactured in its fabs in Catania and Ang Mo Kio (Singapore). Assembly and test are done at back-end sites in Shenzhen (China) and Bouskoura (Morocco).

ST Microelectronics