SK Siltron said on March 2 that it had completed the acquisition of DuPont's wafer business in the United States last month. The acquisition amounted to $ 450 million. SK Siltron is one of the 5 largest wafer manufacturing companies in the world.
NE Review:
1.SK Siltron's predecessor was LG Siltron, which was acquired by SK Group in 2017. Now it has included DuPont's wafer business. With two acquisitions, SK Group is trying to gain new growth momentum from the two major booms in electric vehicles and 5G.
2. The acquisition of DuPont's SiC business will provide SK Siltron with a stable wafer supply and generate synergies within the group. The SK Group includes semiconductor-related companies such as SK Hynix and SK Materials. SK Siltron is added to the SK Group's vertically integrated semiconductor supply chain from upstream. According to Statista data, Samsung and SK Hynix have 12.5% and 5.4% of the global semiconductor market, ranking second and third, respectively.
3. American and Japanese companies are the main manufacturers of wafer fabs. The top five companies in the world for silicon wafers are Shin-Etsu Semiconductor of Japan, Japan Hi-Tech, Taiwan Global Wafer, Germany Silitronic and SK Siltron. GaN substrates are monopolized by three Japanese companies Sumitomo Electric, Mitsubishi Chemical, and Sumitomo Chemical. The SiC substrate faucet is American Cree, German SiCrystal, American II-VI, and American Dow Corning.
4.SK Siltron believes that SiC wafers are expected to have a high double-digit growth rate each year. SiC substrates are mainly used in power semiconductors. With the expanding electric vehicle market and the development of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT), the semiconductor wafer market is expected to grow rapidly. IHS Markit data predicts that by 2025, the SiC wafer market will reach $ 5.2 billion.