News: Suppliers
24 May 2022
Showa Denko’s 8-inch SiC wafer development project funded by NEDO
Tokyo-based wafer manufacturer Showa Denko K.K. (SDK) says that its ‘Project to Develop SiC Wafers Technology for Next-generation Green Power Semiconductors’ has been selected by Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) as an R&D target of ‘Next-generation Digital Infrastructure Construction’ as part of its Green Innovation Fund projects.
In October 2020, the Japanese Government declared that it aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Aiming to significantly accelerate efforts toward structural changes in the energy and industrial sectors and to make corresponding investments in innovation, the Ministry of Energy, Trade and Industry (METI) decided to develop a 2 trillion yen Green Innovation Fund as part of NEDO.
SDK’s business manufacturing SiC epitaxial wafers for power semiconductors is claimed to have the top share of the global SiC epiwafer market. In the project, SDK plans to use its intellectual property portfolio and development expertise to develop SiC epiwafers with a diameter of 8-inches, and to reduce the defect density by at least one order of magnitude, hence reducing production costs for next-generation power semiconductors.
During the project’s implementation period of nine years (from fiscal 2022 to fiscal 2030), SDK aims to develop technology to accelerate the growth rate of SiC bulk single crystal in cooperation with Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST).
Showa Denko enters mass production of 6-inch SiC single-crystal substrates
