II-VI racks up record SiC shipments
As ZnSe specialist II-VI Incorporated celebrated record revenue for the quarter ended December 31, the company s SiC wafer group had its own good news to report.
"The wide-bandgap materials group continues to make record shipments of semi-insulating silicon carbide substrates to the RF applications market in North America," explained Francis Kramer, II-VI s president and CEO.
II-VI also says that DARPA s wide-bandgap semiconductor project, under which it supplies wafers to TriQuint Semiconductor, is proceeding well, and the supplier expects further successful product qualifications with Asia-based customers in 2008.
Another key milestone that II-VI expects to hit this year is volume production of its 100 mm SiC wafers, which are currently in evaluation with its lead partners.
2008 will mark the final year of a three-year government-funded program to develop low-defect 100 mm substrates. Currently II-VI sells 50 and 75 mm wafers, which have dislocation densities "in the low-to-mid 104 cm-2 range", a level of quality that it describes as market-leading.
"Our 6H semi-insulating material is as good as, or better than, any other available SiC substrate," said Andy Souzis, program and business development manager in II-VI s wide-bandgap group.
"Our standard quality prime 6H semi-insulating material is specified at less than 75 micropipes cm-2, but our typical quality at this time is less than 10."
II-VI s compound semiconductor business includes two units in addition to the wide-bandgap group. The first, Marlow Industries, manufactures bismuth telluride materials for thermo-electric cooling (TEC) applications and the second, eV Products, produces cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) radiation detection products.
II-VI s overall sales for the December quarter increased 17 percent over the same time in 2006 to $74.3 million, with the compound semiconductor division earning $1.1 million on sales of $13.7 million.
