Dow Electronic Materials
Silicon Carbide Wafers and Epitaxy

As conventional silicon approaches its physical limits, the global power electronics industry is in the midst of a major transformation. Dow is helping drive it forward as an innovative and reliable global source of high-crystal quality silicon carbide (SiC) wafers and epitaxy services.

The unique properties of SiC wafers and epitaxy offer the benefit of faster switching at higher power and increased energy efficiency, often eliminating expensive cooling systems and enabling improved performance. Potential applications include:

• Hybrid or electric vehicles
• Photovoltaic inverters
• Traction inverters
• Power factor correction and uninterruptable power supplies
• Variable speed drives for electrical motor systems
• And more...

Dow offers both 100 and 150 mm SiC substrates, as well as SiC epitaxy service (n- and p-type). Specifications can be tuned to customer needs, with standard thicknesses up to 20 µm.

DOW CORNING™ Prime Grade Portfolios

Our Prime Grade portfolios for 100 mm and 150 mm wafers each offer three product tiers of SiC substrates, labeled Prime Standard, Prime Select and Prime Ultra.

Dow’s unique SiC wafer grading structure sets clear standards for specifying tolerances on defects, such as micropipe density (MPD), threading screw dislocations (TSD) and basal plane dislocations (BPD).

By offering three product tiers of with increasingly tighter tolerances, Dow’s Prime Grade portfolios expand the options to optimize the performance and cost of next-generation power electronic devices.

All SiC wafers in Dow Corning's 100 mm and 150 mm Prime Grade portfolios deliver consistently excellent mechanical characteristics to ensure compatibility with existing and developing device fabrication processes.

The Prime Grade portfolios include:

• Prime Standard SiC wafers offer an attractive option for balancing performance and cost when designing simpler SiC power electronic components, such as Schottky or Junction Barrier Schottky diodes, with low to medium current ratings.
• 100 mm Prime Standard wafers guarantee MPD of ≤ 0.5 cm²
• 150 mm wafers Prime Standard wafers guarantee MPD of < 1 cm²
• Prime Select SiC wafers deliver more stringent tolerances for defects, making them suitable for more demanding SiC devices like pin diodes or switches.
• 100 mm Prime Select wafers guarantee MPD (≤ 0.2 cm²), TSD (≤ 500 cm²) and BPD (≤ 800 cm²)
• 150 mm Prime Select wafers guarantee MPD (< 1 cm²), TSD (≤ 300 cm²) and BPD (≤ 5,000 cm²)
• Prime Ultra SiC wafers deliver the lowest defect densities and a tightened wafer resistivity distribution for the design of today's most advanced high-power SiC electronic devices, including metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs), junction field effect transistors (JFETs), insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) and bipolar junction transistors (BJTs). In addition, the superior substrate quality in this tier can benefit high-voltage (3.3 kV and higher) and high-current device designs.
• 100 mm Prime Ultra wafers guarantee MPD (≤ 0.1 cm²), TSD (≤ 300 cm2) and BPD (≤ 500 cm²)
• 150 mm Prime Ultra wafers guarantee MPD (< 1 cm²), TSD (≤ 200 cm²) and BPD (≤ 3,000 cm²) li>