Raytheon UK foundry get SiC diodes order

Raytheon UK’s foundry has received an order from a major fabless semiconductor manufacturer to mass produce silicon carbide (SiC) Schottky barrier diodes which are used for power conversion.

Raytheon UK’s Scottish facility will produce over 1,000 wafers in the first year. The customer will package the devices, which will have voltage ratings ranging from 600V to 1.7kV and current ratings ranging from 1 to 50A.

“This order demonstrates the increasing demand for silicon carbide semiconductors,” said John Kennedy, head of Raytheon UK’s Integrated Power Solutions.

“We have the process know-how and we’re adept at minimising the engineering costs. As an independent foundry, we have greater scope to find more innovative solutions for our customers.”

Raytheon UK’s Glenrothes foundry is the longest established independent full-scale production-qualified facility in Europe – if not the world – capable of SiC wafer processing. It has, for example, already fabricated Schottky and PiN diodes, as well as JFETs and MOSFETs, for other customers.

SiC properties include a breakdown electric field of 2,000kV/cm compared to silicon’s 300kV/cm – allowing for higher voltages; a bandgap energy of 3.26eV compared with silicon’s 1.12eV – enabling RUK007 Page 2 of 2 DECA-613 higher temperature operation; and excellent thermal conductivity (4.9W/cm.K compared with silicon’s
1.5W/cm.K).

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