China CVD TAC COATING Manufacturers, Suppliers, Factory

Silicon carbide (SiC) is currently facing challenges in the "price war," while gallium nitride (GaN) is emerging as a key player in the next technological battlefield.

Semiconductors are materials whose electrical conductivity at room temperature lies between that of insulators and conductors. By introducing impurities, a process known as doping, these materials can become conductors.

Within the silicon carbide (SiC) industry chain, substrate suppliers hold significant leverage, primarily due to value distribution. SiC substrates account for 47% of the total value, followed by epitaxial layers at 23%, while device design and manufacturing constitute the remaining 30%. This inverted value chain stems from the high technological barriers inherent to substrate and epitaxial layer production. Three major challenges plague SiC substrate growth: stringent growth conditions, slow growth rates, and demanding crystallographic requirements. These complexities contribute to increased processing difficulty, ultimately resulting in low product yields and high costs. Furthermore, the epitaxial layer’s thickness and doping concentration are critical parameters directly impacting the final device performance.

Silicon carbide (SiC) is a material that possesses high bond energy, similar to other hard materials like diamond and cubic boron nitride. However, the high bond energy of SiC makes it difficult to crystallize directly into ingots via traditional melting methods. Therefore, the process of growing silicon carbide crystals involves the use of vapor phase epitaxy technology.

The three primary methods used in monocrystalline silicon manufacturing are the Czochralski (CZ) method, the Kyropoulos method, and the Float Zone (FZ) method.

In the front-end process (FEOL) of semiconductor manufacturing, the wafer needs to be subjected to various process treatments, especially the wafer needs to be heated to a certain temperature, and there are strict requirements, because the uniformity of temperature has a very important impact on the product yield; at the same time, semiconductor equipment needs to work in the presence of vacuum, plasma and chemical gases, which requires the use of ceramic heaters.