I recently had the opportunity to make a stopover at Wolfspeed’s new silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductor plant in Marcy, New York. I’m a big fan of SiC, and since traditional silicon devices are reaching their limits, SiC force semiconductors will play an increasingly important role. in long-lasting electric cars and everything that handles electric power. The factory is very different from those that make logic chips. However, for those who have made a stopover in many factories around the world, there are two things that make this one striking: the use of automation and the company has won from the State of New York.
The site sits at the sensitive top of a hill and includes a 500,000-square-foot construction in four degrees with a 120,000-square-foot Class 100 blank room for device production and another 10,000 square feet of area dedicated to background processes such as grinding and bonding materials. This plant will produce SiC MOSFET devices in wafers two hundred mm in diameter (eight inches), which is a step up from the sizes of 150 mm or smaller that have been used historically. A two-hundred-mm wafer has 1. 78 times more chips than a 150 mm wafer, which, combined with investments in tools, will make Marcy the largest and most productive SiC device factory in the world.
SiC is a very complicated resistant material to paint, and you have to do things like expand the epitaxial layers, cook things, and build functions using ion implantation. The company also grinds chip production, which is tricky because SiC is one of the most difficult. fabrics in the world. This means that you want to grind with the hardest substance – diamond, which is a complicated procedure. As the predecessor company Cree (the company replaced its call to Wolfspeed last year), it pioneered device design and innovations in production procedures. , which led to smaller chips for a given rated power, which meant more chips consistent with the segment and consistent with the device’s performances.
It will be a “lights off” factory, meaning that although there will eventually be another six hundred people working on the site, there will be no operators in the blank room, only occasional technicians to hold the equipment and robotics. This is expected to have a positive effect on performance, as people moving through a blank room are a major source of particle pollution and consequent loss of performance. New York can get a lot of snow), production can continue to rise.
This brings me to the amazing moment of this factory. The site is at Marcy Nanocenter, atop a wooded hill adjacent to SUNY Polytechnic Institute, just off the New York State Highway. New York The state had been uploading the site for some time, and Adam Milton, vice president of Mohawk Valley Fab and my host for the tour, told me that “I was fit to use, fit to use. . . water, pipes, sewer, electricity, everything you want to build a scalable, high-volume semiconductor plant in one position there. The site spans 434 acres and Wolfspeed occupies 55, so there’s room for more business. The state also helped speed up permit approvals and everything in between. Corporate sought.
The ability to rent hard work is a must for a complex production operation like Marcy. “SUNY Poly already had pretty strong electrical engineering generation and mechanical engineering generation programs,” Milton explained. “It was very much in line with what we needed. in terms of procedure engineers, device engineers, or commercial and mechanical engineers. “In addition to the structure of the plant, Wolfspeed sent a team of its engineers to the College of Nanoscale Engineering (CNSE) in Albany. As a component of the New York State Incentive Program, CNSE provided cleanroom area and technical assistance to the company to first move a 150 mm pilot procedure from its North Carolina plant and then establish a 200 mm full flow pilot line. Milton added: “Because you really need to do it before you climb. We were able to demonstrate the functionality and skill of this facility, which saves us a lot of time. “
In the vicinity of the city of Utica, New York, the company partnered with Mohawk Valley Community College (MVCC) to help expand the technicians. MVCC has developed a program aligned with the company’s wishes. “We can send them there for six a week-long course or a 15-minute course to get the extra education they need,” Milton added. MVCC also had a lab area in the city center of Utica, where Milton’s team was able to set up a full line of prototype automation with the entire software and hardware infrastructure. that they planned to use in Marcy. ” Once the construction is done, we can essentially take the automation paints that were already made in Utica’s lab and connect them right here in that construction,” Milton explained. “It was another big feather in our hat to start with the start-up of this factory. “According to his estimation, all those things took a year to build, equip and run the factory.
The structure of Marcy’s factory is total and all equipment has been moved. Lately it is in the qualification phase and deliveries to consumers are expected before the end of the year. The total focus, and more importantly the speed, gave the impression of being an assignment of trade progression in Taiwan or South Carolina.
The new Wolfspeed plant will make Marcy, New York, a primary source link in the energy transition. It can also be a style on how to do business development.