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To: Jim Oravetz who wrote (2399)	3/12/2000 6:55:00 PM
From: Jim Oravetz	Respond to of 10713

Cree Demonstrates World Record 4 Inch SiC Wafer - Now Selling 3 Inch SiC Wafer Products Durham, NC, October 11, 1999 - At the International Conference on Silicon Carbide and Related Materials (ICSCRM '99) being held in Research Triangle Park (RTP), North Carolina, Cree Research, Inc. (NASDAQ: CREE) demonstrated the largest single crystal silicon carbide (SiC) wafers ever exhibited. The wafers have no visible defects such as microcracks that are typically found in larger diameter SiC wafers. Samples of the 4 inch (100 mm) wafers in both the 4H and 6H polytypes were unveiled. Neal Hunter, chairman and CEO, said, "This powerful milestone is expected to become the foundation for future products and new innovative applications requiring larger sized SiC wafers. Development and demonstration of a high quality 4 inch wafer in less than a one year period is a remarkable achievement that has cemented our position as the leader in SiC materials research and production." Hunter added, "We have made extraordinary progress in our materials development and will continue to push our efforts to exceed expectations." Also at ICSCRM '99, the company introduced the immediate availability of 3 inch on-axis silicon carbide wafers. Additional 3 inch SiC wafer varieties will be added to the product family. Theoretically, 3 inch SiC wafers can more than double the number of chips per wafer over existing 2 inch technology. This is expected to significantly reduce the cost of devices made from SiC and has the potential to enable the company to increase volume to meet the high demand for its products. Dr. Calvin H. Carter, Executive Vice President and Director of Materials Technology, and co-founder of the company, stated, "We are extremely excited about the introduction of our new 3 inch SiC wafer and the demonstration of our 4 inch wafer. We anticipate that the larger size wafers will ultimately provide economies of scale by increasing the number of chips per wafer which are expected to lower the cost per device." Carter added, "Cree is the only company known to be using 3 inch SiC wafers for production or to demonstrate a 4 inch SiC wafer. We expect our research efforts will continue to accelerate advances in SiC materials technology." North Carolina based Cree Research, Inc. is the world leader in developing and manufacturing semiconductor materials and electronic devices made from silicon carbide. Jim

To: Jim Oravetz who wrote (2399)	3/12/2000 7:05:00 PM
From: Jim Oravetz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10713

Cree Research CRF-20010 SiC RFA Cree Research, Inc. Announces First SiC Microwave Power Product Cree Introduces 2 GHz MESFET Device Chipcenter's Paul McGoldrick says: www.chipcenter.com Well it's about time! I have been waiting for this announcement for nearly three years. I have been telling nay-sayers for that period of time that SiC is the way power amplifiers are going to be built in the future. The process technology is capable of efficiently producing extremely large amounts of power across the HF, VHF, and UHF bands and Cree has been the leader in cleaning up the problems in developing usable wafers of the SiC material. This is the first of many such products of increasingly higher and higher power that will be announced. While the company has obviously decided that the cellular base station market is where the volume is I hope it also realizes that the broadcast market is where the real profits can be made. This particular product has good efficiency, more than enough gain and extremely good linearity -- the latter being the most important specification for the base station as we get closer to the wideband channel capabilities following a single digital-to-analog conversion. The greatest challenge for Cree now will be in developing a market it has no experience in, developing belief in a community that fawns on reliability, and finding enough RF talent to proceed further. If it can do these things the company is sitting on liquid gold. This process doesn't kill GaAs overnight, but it will remove from consideration in the future a large segment of the market. The only technology that I think stands a chance of keeping close is LDMOS and there more devices will be needed to produce the same power levels. Jim