Ascatron gets Funding and Focuses on SiC 150mm Wafers

Ascatron has signed an investment agreement with the Italian investors Quadrivio (through its venture capital fund TTVenture) and Como Venture, which now has been executed. Quadrivio and Como Venture together received 16.7% share in Ascatron. Their aim is to continue to actively support Ascatron in order to create a leading industrial group for next generation power semiconductors based on wide bandgap material such as SiC and GaN. The market is growing rapidly with an annual growth rate of 54% to reach US$ 2.0B in 2020.

In addition, Ascatron and LPE SpA recently entered into a cooperation agreement to develop high-performance SiC epitaxial material for volume production on 150mm substrates. The first results demonstrating outstanding uniformity will be presented at the ICSCRM2015 conference in Catania. Ascatron has installed a new SiC epitaxy reactor supplied by LPE in its production fab in Kista-Stockholm. The reactor system with 150mm wafer capability has the model name PE106. It is a new development from LPE and has recently been introduced on the market. Industry shortest cycle time and smallest footprint makes it an optimal choice for production of Ascatron’s high-quality epitaxial material for high voltage power devices.

“This is a first investment from international investors in Ascatron and we are very pleased to having Quadrivio and Como Venture taking lead on our current A-round fund raising”, says Christian Vieider, CEO of Ascatron. “The money will be used to bring the Buried Grid technology for next generation high performance SiC power electronic devices to the market”.

As part of the agreement Ascatron acquired 28.8% of the shares in PileGrowth Tech, an Italian start-up company based in Milan. Pilegrowth has developed an innovative process for growing different semiconductor materials such as SiC on silicon. The material technology enables Ascatron to also address volume consumer markets with very competitive devices.

“The development of MOSFET transistors based on cubic SiC grown on silicon is an exciting challenge with potential to compete in the 300-1000V market with other semiconductors such as GaN”, according to Adolf Schöner, CTO of Ascatron.

“The new production equipment from LPE is key to scale-up Ascatron advanced epitaxy processes to state-of-the-art 150mm SiC wafers,” commented Christian Vieider, CEO of Ascatron. “We are now ready to provide our customers with n-type doped epi wafers with thicknesses from 0.1 µm up to 100 µm.”

“The new PE1O6 will further enhance Ascatron unique epitaxy based SiC technology, which is set to gain worldwide acceptance among device makers because of its superior features”, according to Franco Preti, CEO of LPE. “The cooperation with Ascatron enables LPE to strengthen our position on the market even further”.

“The single wafer concept of the LPE reactor is ideal to optimize growth parameters for a wide range of processes”, says Adolf Schöner, CTO of Ascatron. “We are now able to establish our unique growth processes for embedded pn junctions and 3D structures on this 150mm wafer platform, which is a crucial step towards cost effective production of next generation SiC power devices.”