On January 12, local time, Infineon announced that the company was expanding its cooperation with silicon carbide (SiC) suppliers and had signed a new multi-year supply and cooperation agreement with Resonac (formerly known as Showa Electric), supplementing and expanding the 2021 agreement.
According to the agreement, Resonac will provide Infineon with SiC materials, covering the double-digit share of the predicted demand in the next decade.
Infineon will provide Resonac with intellectual property related to SiC material technology. Although the focus of the initial stage is the supply of 6-inch SiC materials, Resonac will also support the transition of Infineon to 8-inch wafer diameter at the later stage of the agreement.
Peter Wawer, president of Infineon Industrial Power Control Division, said that the business opportunities in renewable energy generation and storage, electric vehicles and infrastructure will be huge in the next few years.
At present, Infineon is expanding its silicon carbide manufacturing capacity to reach 30% market share by the end of this decade. By 2027, Infineon's silicon carbide manufacturing capacity will increase tenfold. The new plant in Curin, Malaysia is planned to be put into operation in 2024.
At present, the demand of terminal markets such as consumer electronics is still declining, and the global semiconductor market continues to meet challenges, but the third-generation semiconductor market applied to power components is showing a rising trend.
As one of the typical representatives of the third generation of semiconductor materials, silicon carbide is shining in the fields of new energy vehicles, rail transit, photovoltaic power generation, industrial power supply and other fields with its excellent characteristics such as high temperature resistance, faster switching, better heat conduction, low impedance, and more stability, among which, new energy vehicles are the typical applications.