BEIJING, Feb. 24 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Tankeblue Semiconductors Co. Ltd., a Beijing-based semiconductors company devoted to the mass production of the quality SiC wafers, announces an important breakthrough in the growth technique of SiC single crystals. The key technique and know-how came primarily from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, a prestigious institution in China. Consequently, Tankeblue announced that two of its products, 2" conductive 4H-SiC and 6H-SiC wafers will be sold at the special prices, lowered by 60% over the previous market ones to meet the increasing demand from researchers and industrial customers as well. Tankeblue will provide the SiC wafers globally with the price: $150/piece for 2" n-type 6H and $250/piece for 2" n-type 4H. Tankeblue's new pricing strategy is expected to greatly speed the development of the SiC-based devices, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), Schottky diodes, converters used in hybrid automobiles, etc. Tankeblue's purity semi-insulating SiC wafers, that are widely used for fabricating power devices, will be pushed to the market in the near future.
Nowadays, the innovation of technology is often fueled by the rapid development of semi-conductor industry. SiC, a wide-band gap semiconductor, finds its significant applications in the fields of microelectronics, power electronics, semiconductor lighting, etc. According to an authoritative survey released in 2008 by Yole Developpement Co., the market volume for SiC wafers will reach about $400 Million by 2012 worldwide, with 3", 4" and larger SiC wafers being the mainstream products. The main wafer manufacturers, Cree and II-VI in North America, SiCrystal and Norstel in Europe, Tankeblue and Nippon Steel in Asia, have been striving to improve crystal quality and to increase size. Among them, Cree is in the dominant position with about 60%-70% sales share in the global SiC wafer market, but the technical gap between Cree and its challengers is narrowing gradually. A variety of SiC-based devices has been developed over the past decades. Nevertheless, the wafer price is still a barrier for the wide application of SiC wafers.
