Munich, Germany, and Durham (NC), USA – 26 February 2018 – Infineon Technologies AG (FSE: IFX / OTCQX: IFNNY) and Cree, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE) agreed on a strategic long-term supply agreement for the provision of silicon carbide (SiC) wafers. Thus, Infineon will be able to broaden its offering of SiC products to address today’s high-growth markets such as photovoltaic inverters and electro-mobility. Since Infineon has already converted all its SiC manufacturing lines to the most advanced 150 millimeter SiC wafers, the agreement with Cree covers only this wafer diameter.
“We have known Cree for a long time as a strong and reliable partner with an excellent industry reputation,” said Reinhard Ploss, CEO of Infineon. “Based on the secured long-term supply of SiC wafers, we strengthen our strategic growth areas in automotive and industrial power control. As a consequence we will create additional value for our customers.”
“Infineon is a longstanding, valuable commercial partner with an excellent reputation,” said Gregg Lowe, CEO of Cree. “This agreement validates the quality of Cree’s SiC wafer technology and our capacity expansion, as well as the accelerated adoption of SiC-based solutions that are critical to enabling faster, smaller, lighter and more powerful electronic systems.”
Silicon carbide supports many applications
Semiconductors based on silicon carbide technology are the basis for most high-efficiency and disruptive system solutions in power conversion and in the electric car. The use of SiC-based power semiconductor solutions has shown a strong increase over the last years. Compared to silicon-based power semiconductors, SiC devices provide higher energy savings and higher system density from size reduction of the passive components. Over the next few years, in addition to electro-mobility and photovoltaic, SiC products will expand into application fields such as robotics, industrial power supplies, traction and variable speed drives.
