CREE Competitors and Value Chain, Part 2
Warning this is a relatively long post.Virtually all of this derives from web based information with very little independent confirmation. In many areas I am purely guessing and I've tried to note those instances with a question mark.
Also if after reading through this, you are thoroughly confused as to who is part of CREE's value chain and who is a competitor, then you have understood perfectly. The situation is indeed confusing since CREE often competes with with some of it's customers. I think the best we can say is that CREE is at a point where they need to insure the market is jump started, analogous to QCOM and the phone sets. I've seen nothing that indicates in which direction (devices or substrates) CREE intends to consolidate it's power. I prefer the devices, but they haven't asked me (yet!) for my opinion.
Secondly before delving into the competition it is good to fully understand the value proposition of SiC and CREE's competitive position.
The absolute single best tutorial on SiC semiconductor technology that I have found is this 142 slide presentation from mid 1998. About half of it is technical, but the other half has good graphics and easy to understand conclusions.
nina.ecse.rpi.edu
If you don't want to go through all of the slides at least do the following:
Read the first 35 or so
Slide 42 Grumman wafers up to 3 inches
Slide 49 Japanese institutions active in this area
Slide 53 A SiC diode tolerated a forward current density of 800 amps per sq. cm (that's impressive)
Slide 111 SiC timeline
Slide 133 Cree's latest (remember this is mid 1998) results
Slides 135+ Applications
Slide 141 Conclusions
As far as CREE's weaknesses, the only thing that I can find that is recent exists in progress reports from Cornell's work under an Office of Naval Research Contract. In short they have produced better/ more consistent devices on sapphire substrates than SiC. Cree is at least one of their vendors, but it is not unknown for companies to give junk to the universities. You have to wade through these reports (which are mostly technical) to find the pertinent comments. I've extracted several key ones(with some paraphrasing) in case you wish to bypass the reports at:
iiiv.cornell.edu
Due to poor quality of substrates these devices are not yet reproducibly good on SiC... by working with two or more vendors it is expected that those problems will be worked out in the next few months...
The 2 inch substrates from 1 vendor has visible defects even cracks at the surface, while another has an excellent surface but has high net donor density[It is not clear if these are from Cree or a competitor. The latter issue infers a quality control problem or that the vendor purposefully sent junk.]
Eleven of 16 wafers commercial 2 inch SiC wafer were returned to the vendor due to large defect density [Confirms the difficulty of making good SiC wafers]
This is the follow up to using multiple vendors after culling through the wafers to select the best SiC wafers from CREE and another:
The alternate vendor's 1 3/8 inch wafers are compared to CREE N+ wafers. Both show high interfacial charges relative sapphire I paraphrased the actual paragraph heavily to make it understandable. The Cornell folks have done a lot of fine tuning work to get the sapphire devices to perform. Originally some devices on SiC were better than those on sapphire. I think they focused more on sapphire since the substrates were more available. I think that if they apply the same effort to SiC substrates, they will get similar results ultimately. This summary is very recent so it is clearly still difficult to get good SiC wafers.
Now to the who's who! I've not included those firms which are resellers.
Substrate Competitors
Sterling/Epitronic/ATMI
TDI
SiCrystal AG
II-VI
HOYA
Novecon
Nippon Steel
Grumman?
Westinghouse?
Rhombic?
American Xtal Tech?
Aixtron? (indirectly)
Emcore? (indirectly)
Value Chain:Substrate Customers
TDI?
Grumman?
Ge/Emcore/Gelcore?
ABB
Vishay
Infineon (Seimens-Osram)
Diamler
Matsushita
Various Universities and Government Labs
Sterling etal
sterling-semiconductor.com
Sterling and Epitronics stem from a Mother Company called ATMI. While I don't know anybody personally at Sterling or Epitronics I do know the upper management at ATMI. I respect their professionalism so by transference I deem these two entities as posing a viable competitive threat to CREE. As best I can tell Sterling is selling substrates made by Epitronics. I think it is mostly SiC films deposited onto Si. Sterling may have had technology transferred from Epitronics to allow them to produce in house as well. It seems they mostly produce 35 mm wafers and will do 50 mm (2 inch)as special order. They claim less than 100 micropipe/cm2 defect levels. [Cree has achieved 0.8/cm2 densities but the commercial level is also on this order]
TDI
tdii.com
Their site is very informative with nice graphics so I encourage a visit.
They claim to have a new process that improves the quality of SiC wafers by essentially patching the defects and then growing a much improved layer on top. They are able to deliver 35-41 mm wafers with defect densities of <15/cm2. I'm assuming that they likely start with CREE wafers.
SiCrystal AG
sicrystal.de
This German firm offers SiC wafers up to 50 mm with defect densities of 2x those of CREE. A wafer currently costs slightly over $1000 (vs. Cree's $495)
II-VI
ii-vi.com
Two Six is a mini conglomerate that recently has started to claim the ability to produce SiC wafer substrates. They originally projected being able to deliver wafers up to 50 mm by the end of 1999. It doesn't appear to me that they are really in production yet. Although they seem to be behind the power curve here, I wouldn't discount them. In the distant past I was aware of programs in the optics regime where they were able to set the standards. Some of the processes used are applicable to growing SiC layers.
Hoya
hoya.co.jp
Now here is something intriguing. They claimed to be able to supply SiC on 150mm (6 inch) Si wafers. They used to have a site where you could sign up to get free wafers for researching. About a week ago when I decided to apply for a free sample, the site disappeared. In fact I've noticed that most of my links to japanese sites on this topic have disappeared. Coincidence? I don't think so. We'll need to watch the Japanese collective closely. The only additional info on Hoya that I can offer is dated 1994:
itri.loyola.edu
Nippon Steel
I have no link to a Nippon Steel site but this visit report from nearly two years ago states that they had one of the most advanced SiC wafer programs:
ttec.org
Japan General
This is old but indicates that they are not sleeping over in Japan:
atip.or.jp
Novecon
novecon.com
These folks will supply SiC wafers from Russia. The irregularly shaped (high quality) Lely substrates are not competitive since there is no way to commercially process these to make product. They are only useful for research. Otherwise, they can deliver 1 inch wafers with typical defect specs.
They also mention various patents here which gives an Idea of potential competitors/customers to CREE:
novecon.com
I wish to point out that much of the early work on SiC semiconductors was done by Russian Scientists. Indeed Cree seems to have a good relationship with many and has coauthored papers and funded efforts. Check these out:
ehis.navy.mil
ru.com
If I remember correctly unclewest or somebody on this thread was involved in military intelligence and can probably comment of the Russian's capability. I personally have always respected them for having done so much with so little. Indeed I've always thought that since they had so little resources they were forced to better think the problem through before beginning to attack it. These folks are probably a very powerful resource to CREE.
Grumman
sensor.northgrum.com
I really don't have much on them except to say that the Cornell slide show indicated that they had produced a 3 inch substrate by mid 98. I don't think they are selling anything commercially. I also believe the focus is mostly military and doesn't appear to be a hot area for them since none of their open job positions are focused in the SiC area. No SiC based products are listed on the web site. They seem to be mostly device focused so maybe they are a CREE customer, but I've also seen references to their ability to deposit epitaxial SiC.
Westinghouse
I've mostly only seen them referenced in reports like these:
nctn.hq.nasa.gov
strategies-u.com
Generally I would say that Westinghouse is spectacularly unsuccessful in commercializing semiconductor devices over the last 20 years or so. These announcements refer to a device launched several years ago, but I can't even find a Westinghouse web site to investigate it further. If somebody knows of their site address please post it.
Rhombic
I list them with some trepidation since the web site content seems to have crossed into the realm of "hype". You can judge for yourself. They seem to think they have a technology that can improve the quality of compound semiconductors, but appear to have not progressed beyond the concept phase (indeed their website almost seems to be seeking money and probably exceeds what the SEC would allow).
rhombic.com
American Xtal Technology
axt.com
I've seen references to them announcing last year having grown their first SiC crystals, but there is nothing about it on the web site other than the comment buried in this news release:
axt.com
They also claim to be involved in the blue led market by supplying GaN and SiC substrates.
Emcore and Aixtron
emcore.com
aixtron.com
I lumped these two together since they supply machines (and these days that usually means an associated process to run on the systems)to deposit layers like GaN or SiC. They both have partnerships, but the Emcore/GE Gelcore partnerships is potentially the greater threat to CREE from the device standpoint. I'm not able to determine if they usually use CREE wafers as a substrate, but would think they try to deliver a process which is substrate vendor neutral. I would also assume they deliver processes to their customers that circumvent CREE's patents. Usually purchasers of such systems have the equipment vendor indemnify them from patent violations.
Customers
I assume these firms are likely substrate customers which means they are device competitors. I'm not including the already mentioned ones above.
GE/Emcore, Gelcore
gelcore.com
This joint venture is focused on the lighting potential.It is not clear whether they intend to use sapphire or SiC or both. My guess is that if adequate quantity and quality of SiC is available they will use it because of the packaging advantages. GE can also bring tremendous material processing technology to this JV. Even if they are today a SiC customer one should not discount their ability to produce it in the future.
Additionally, I have seen GE referenced numerous times as having made advancements in SiC devices. This is the only GE site I've found about SiC devices:
crd.ge.com
ABB
abb.com
Although ABB is probably best know for power plants, one of the B's stands for Brown which is/was a leading power semiconductor manufacturer. Consequently their interest in SiC is understandable. I don't see them really trying to compete in the substrate arena although I did see a reference to them successfully growing SiC layers.
Vishay
vishay.de
Clearly states the device is on SiC. Can only assume it may be from Cree.
Infineon formerly Seimens/Osram
infineon.com
You'll have to burrow down through their site. Start with products and then to optoelectronics of LEDS and then finally blue Leds (if I remember correctly).
They have had a strong relationship with CREE over the years. I also know that on the materials research side they have ongoing programs with SiC, GaN (+alloys) and AlN. I wouldn't be surprised to find out they have licensed some of Cree's technology. They also led the charge in having the blue/white leds used for cars.
Matsushita
I don't have a direct link to Matsushita, but I have this reference:
ttec.org
I think it is also interesting to realize that Panasonic is a Matsushita brand and they are reportedly buying the blue/white leds from CREE.
I'm going to stop here. That really doesn't cover 100% of the customers (or probably competitors)since I didn't mention pure end customers like Nokia nor the government labs or universities. Nevertheless I think it is clear that CREE does not (yet anyway) have the world to themselves. They still need to execute to get into an Intel like position. I don't think they can adopt the Qcom model without taking on a greater amount of risk. It wouldn't be bad to maintain the position of predominant wafer supplier as long as possible while they try to capture as much of the device market as possible.
I hope this helps better understand CREE's competitive position.
Fatboy |
