On July 5, 2023, Renesas Electronics and Wolfspeed jointly signed a wafer supply agreement, and Renesas Electronics paid a deposit of 2 billion US dollars to ensure the 10-year supply commitment of Wolfspeed silicon carbide wafers. The high-quality SiC wafers supplied by Wolfspeed will pave the way for Renesas Electronics to begin mass production of SiC power semiconductors starting in 2025. The agreement was signed by Hidetoshi Shibata, President and CEO of Renesas Electronics, and Gregg Lowe, President and CEO of Wolfspeed, at the signing ceremony at Renesas Electronics' Tokyo headquarters.
The ten-year supply agreement calls for Wolfspeed to supply 150mm SiC bare die and epitaxial wafers to Renesas Electronics in 2025, strengthening both companies' industry-wide transition from silicon semiconductor power devices to SiC semiconductor power devices Vision. The agreement also envisages the supply of 200mm SiC die and epitaxial wafers to Renesas once the Wolfspeed SiC manufacturing center is fully operational.
Spurred by the growth of electric vehicles (EV) and renewable energy, there is a dramatic increase in demand for more efficient power semiconductors (used to supply and manage electricity) across automotive and industrial applications. Renesas Electronics is moving quickly to meet the growing demand for power semiconductors by expanding its in-house manufacturing capabilities. The company recently announced the expansion of IGBT production at the Kofu plant and the establishment of a silicon carbide production line at the Takasaki plant.
Silicon carbide devices offer higher energy efficiency, greater power density, and lower system cost than traditional silicon power semiconductors. In an increasingly energy-conscious world, the adoption of silicon carbide is becoming more prevalent in a variety of high-volume applications such as electric vehicles, renewable energy and storage, charging infrastructure, industrial power supplies, traction and variable speed drives.
"The wafer supply agreement with Wolfspeed will provide Renesas Electronics with a stable, long-term supply base of high-quality SiC wafers. This enables Renesas Electronics to expand our power semiconductor offerings to better serve our customers' broad range of applications ,” said Hidetoshi Shibata, President and CEO of Renesas Electronics. "We are now poised to promote ourselves as a key player in the growing silicon carbide market."
"As demand for silicon carbide continues to grow in the automotive, industrial and energy sectors, it is critical that we have a best-in-class power semiconductor customer like Renesas Electronics to help lead the world's transition from silicon to silicon carbide," said Wolfspeed Chief Executive Officer and "For more than 35 years, Wolfspeed has focused on producing silicon carbide wafers and high-quality power devices, and this relationship marks an important step in our mission to save the world's energy," said Gregg Lowe, president.
Renesas' $2 billion deposit will help support Wolfspeed's ongoing capacity-building projects, including JP, the world's largest silicon carbide materials plant in Chatham County, North Carolina. The goal of the multibillion-dollar, state-of-the-art facility is to more than 10-fold increase Wolfspeed's current silicon carbide production capacity at its Durham, North Carolina, campus. The factory will primarily produce 200mm silicon carbide wafers, which are 1.7 times larger than 150mm wafers, which means more chips can be accommodated per wafer, ultimately reducing equipment costs.
In recent years, with the explosion of the silicon carbide industry, Wolfspeed has signed cooperation agreements with many companies, including STMicroelectronics, Infineon, General Motors, Land Rover, ZF, BorgWarner, etc.
Not long ago, at the Shanghai International Embedded Exhibition, Zhao Mingyu, vice president of the Automotive Electronics Strategic Sales Center of Renesas Electronics' global sales and marketing headquarters, introduced Renesas' layout in the field of power devices.
In an inverter, most of the cost comes from the power devices. For a long time, Renesas has mainly provided bare wafers for customers in the IGBT industry. At present, the demand in the IGBT market is hot, so Renesas also restarted the previously closed Kofu factory and upgraded it to a 12-inch IGBT production line. In addition, in 2019, Renesas and SMIC Shaoxing cooperated, and through the foundry cooperation with SMIC Shaoxing, the local production capacity of Renesas IGBT was improved, and at the same time, more IGBT-related processes were brought to China.
In the field of silicon carbide, Renesas only has a 6-inch line, and it mainly targets several large customers. Now, in order to meet the demand for new energy for silicon carbide, Renesas has decided to expand silicon carbide. Zhao Mingyu especially emphasized that although Renesas entered the silicon carbide market later than its competitors, the advantage is that it can see the problems and pitfalls faced by its competitors in advance, so as to effectively avoid problems. "We are now very confident that in 2025, when our new silicon carbide 8-inch line is mass-produced, the performance of our products will be able to compete with all competitors' products on the market." Zhao Mingyu said at the time.
The signing of a long-term cooperation with Wolfspeed this time is another important decision made by Renesas in the field of silicon carbide, which demonstrates the company's optimism about the prospect of silicon carbide.
Renesas Electronics Products
- Attenuators
- Audio Special Purpose
- Clock/Timing - Application Specific
- Clock/Timing - Clock Buffers, Drivers
- Clock/Timing - Clock Generators, PLLs, Frequency Synthesizers
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- Clock/Timing - Programmable Timers and Oscillators
- Clock/Timing - Real Time Clocks
- Crystals
- Data Acquisition - ADCs/DACs - Special Purpose
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- Data Acquisition - Analog to Digital Converters (ADC)
- Data Acquisition - Digital Potentiometers
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- Data Acquisition - Touch Screen Controllers
- Diodes - Rectifiers - Arrays
- Diodes - Rectifiers - Single
- Diodes - Variable Capacitance (Varicaps, Varactors)
- Diodes - Zener - Single
- Embedded - Microcontrollers
- Embedded - Microcontrollers - Application Specific
- Embedded - Microprocessors
- Embedded - System On Chip (SoC)
- Flow Sensors
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