EC approves €66m for German SiC facility
The European Commission has approved €288 million in German State aid to support the setting up of two new facilities in the semiconductor supply chain.
Part of the aid is €66 million for Zadient Materials Europe GmbH to set up a facility for the manufacturing of SiC source materials in Bitterfeld, Saxony-Anhalt.
Zadient is a venture-backed start-up that has developed an industrial-scale process for efficiently producing tens of thousands of tons per year of granular SiC source material at purities reaching 8N (99.999999 percent). It is using the material to develop new technologies targetting high yield, low defect SiC wafers.
Zadient's 'Sic-Pro' investment project involves a circular system in which process gases are recovered and reintroduced in the production cycle. This is a novel process in the EU and is expected to support high material quality, energy efficiency and long-term cost-effectiveness. The aid will be provided in the form of a direct grant of €66 million.
The other €222 million will be for Carl Zeiss's ‘HNA@SCALE' project, which will introduce and industrialise extreme ultraviolet ('EUV') optical columns required for the next generation of EUV lithography machines produced by the Dutch company ASML
