“Air Water has recently established a production setup for 8 inch silicon carbide (SiC) wafers which it has had under development for quite some time now. This April the company began sending out samples to companies manufacturing high frequency devices.

The wafer is called the 3C-CiS on (111) hetroepitaxial wafer. It is configured in such a way that a silicon carbide (SiC) thin film of approximately 3 microns can be grown on a silicon (Si) substrate. This is the first instance ever of the mass production of silicon substrates

with a large diameter greater than 8 inches. Producing a GaN film on an SiC film is comparatively easy so that Air Water will offer this wafer as a substrate wafer for use as GaN substrates anticipated for utilization with power semiconductors employed with high frequency devices. Along with this, Air Water is setting out to produce and market substrates on which a GaN mono crystalline film is grown on an SiC substrate.

Regarding the size of the products, for the SiC line the range will be between 2-8 inches abd for GaN line the range will be between 2-6 inches. 8 inch wafers could also be handled in accordance with the development of the demand. Bulk wafers are produced by slicing them off from a mono crystalline ingot. For SiC and GaN bulk wafers, their ability to grow crystals and their process conditions are difficult, so that 4-6 inch wafers are at the level where they can be mass produced, and it had been considered that diameters larger that were really not possible. SiC and GaN too which form GaN film directly on a Si substrate have very high technological hurdles to overcome, and are in a situation whereby achieving this result is hard.”