News: Microelectronics
25 June 2024
Wolfspeed’s Mohawk Valley 200mm SiC fab reaches 20% utilization
Wolfspeed Inc of Durham, NC, USA — which makes silicon carbide (SiC) materials and power semiconductor devices — says that its Mohawk Valley silicon carbide fab has reached 20% wafer start utilization, a critical step in the firm’s efforts to meet the growing demand for silicon carbide power devices.
Additionally, Wolfspeed’s Building 10 Materials facility has achieved its 200mm wafer production target to support about 25% wafer start utilization at the Mohawk Valley fab by the end of calendar year 2024.
The Mohawk Valley fab has also achieved LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver certification, a distinction from the world’s most widely used green building framework and rating system. Wolfspeed says that the LEED Silver certification highlights its commitment to going beyond compliance, promoting environmental health and industry-leading sustainability.
The Mohawk Valley facility is reckoned to be the world’s first purpose-built, fully automated 200mm silicon carbide fab and, when combined with Wolfspeed’s 200mm materials production, makes Wolfspeed currently the only fully vertically integrated 200mm silicon carbide manufacturer at scale.
Additionally, Wolfspeed’s John Palmour Manufacturing Center (the JP) in Siler City, NC, which will be the world’s largest silicon carbide materials facility upon completion, has installed and recently activated initial furnaces less than one year after vertical construction began. As a result, the facility is on schedule to achieve crystal qualification by early August. The firm says that this progress reinforces its confidence that it is well positioned to ramp the JP in line with its target to deliver wafers from the facility to the Mohawk Valley fab by summer 2025.
“Having reached our 20% utilization target at Mohawk Valley, we are well positioned to continue executing our 200mm vertical integration strategy ahead of other market participants,” says president & CEO Gregg Lowe. “Further, recent advancements at the JP put Wolfspeed well on track to achieve our facility targets and significantly expand our materials capacity, driving meaningful progress towards our strategic goals.”
Business outlook after equipment incident at Durham 150mm device fab
Wolfspeed says that, at its Durham 150mm device fab, it experienced an equipment incident that was quickly identified and resolved. However, this has resulted in a temporary capacity reduction while the incident was being remediated. Production has been resumed and the firm expects that the fab’s capacity utilization can return to previously targeted levels by August.
As a result of the production disruption, in fiscal fourth-quarter 2024 (to end-June), Wolfspeed does not expect an impact on revenue but does expect an impact from under-utilization and other costs.
Due to the Durham 150mm device fab equipment incident, Wolfspeed is updating its fiscal fourth-quarter 2024 guidance as follows, and providing a preliminary outlook for revenue and non-GAAP gross margin for its fiscal first-quarter 2025 (to end-September):
- Targeted fiscal fourth-quarter revenue from continuing operations is unchanged at $185–215m, but the firm expects a potential negative impact to fiscal first-quarter 2025 revenue of about $20m.
- Targeted fourth-quarter gross margin is 0–8%, due to an under-utilization impact realized in the fourth quarter and other costs related to the equipment incident. Also, due to under-utilization, the firm expects fiscal first-quarter 2025 gross margin to be in a similar range.
- Fourth-quarter non-GAAP net loss from continuing operations is targeted to be $122–105m ($0.96–0.83 per diluted share).
Wolfspeed plans to update the market on its next utilization milestone for Mohawk Valley during its fiscal fourth-quarter 2024 earnings call in August.
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Wolfspeed tops out construction of John Palmour Manufacturing Center for Silicon Carbide
