1. SiC Patent Analysis Single Crystal, Wafer and Epiwafer
Manufacturing
Report Details:
Published:July 2012
No. of Pages:
Price: Single User License – US$9290
1772 patent families to support a $80M business in 2012
Despite a cumulative raw wafers + epi wafers market that won’t exceed $80M in 2012, the corpus
of related patents comprises over 1772 patent families and more than 350 companies since 1928.
83% of patents represent a method while 17% of them claim an apparatus.
Since 1978 the main technique to grow bulk single-crystals of silicon carbide is PVT: Physical
Vapor Transport (seeded sublimation method) which represents 36% of published patents. This
PVT technique mostly deals with the hexagonal polytype nH-SiC (n=2,4,6). Liquid Phase Epitaxy
(LPE) is an alternative route to grow SiC (early efforts date back to 1961). It allows crystals to
grow with low dislocation densities and at relatively low temperatures (attractive for cubic polytype
3C-SiC).
About 37% of patents claim a Chemical Vapor Deposition technique (CVD) which is almost
exclusively used today to manufacture SiC epiwafer. The Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) is only
mentioned within 1% of patents. The polytype (hexagonal or cubic) is explicitly claimed in 15% of
patents. Numerous strategies to reduce crystal defects (micropipes, carrots …) and make semi-
insulating material are proposed in 23% and 10% of patents respectively.
INVESTMENT IN R&D DOESN’T MATCH SALES REVENUE
About 350 applicants are involved in SiC crystal/epiwafer technology. They are mainly located in
Japan (72% of patents) and USA (12% of patents). The five major applicants based on their
patents number are Denso, Sumitomo, Nippon Steel, Bridgestone and Toyota. They represent
about 35% of studied patents. The first US firm Cree Inc. occupies the 6th position. This balance is
totally uncorrelated from the reality of the market where 75% of the SiC wafer business is
generated by US-based companies, namely CREE, II-VI or Dow Corning. Japan is only
responsible for 5% of the revenues (at least before SiCrystal Acquisition by Rohm). Same
observations are seen in Europe and Asia (out of Japan) where the [# of patents/revenues] ratio is

2. very weak at the moment.
JAPAN LEADS THE IP BUT KOREA AND CHINA TAKE-OFF
Japan is increasingly involved in SiC technology since the 1980’s. United States was the early
player and still is active. In contrast, only 3 Japanese companies are commercially active in SiC
material: Showa Denko (epiwafer), Bridgestone (wafer) and Nippon Steel (wafer and epiwafer).
China and Korea emerged as new players during the last five years along with the establishment
of companies such as Epiworld (CN), TianYue (CN), TYSTC (CN), Tankeblue (CN), SKC
(KR).However, these companies market shares remain very low at the moment.
SiC MATERIAL: A QUESTION OF KNOW-HOW?
It looks obvious that IP considerations do not create a differentiating factor for success in the SiC
substrate business. CREE is leading this industry with about 50% market share on a worldwide
basis, and has clearly the best reputation in terms of quality, diameter and reproducibility.
However, CREE does not own the widest patent portfolio. Thus, know-how and patent numbers do
not seem correlated.
The only field where number of patents and business size appears to be more balanced is Semi-
Insulating (S.I.) SiC technology where both CREE (Vanadium-free) and II-VI (Vanadium-doped)
have extensively patented their respective developments.
WHAT IS THE BEST RECIPE TO ENTER THE SiC SUBSTRATE BUSINESS?
The barriers to the entry in the SiC substrate world are very high: today state-of-the-art deals with
6” diameter, likely no-micropipe and very low dislocation density. Only CREE seems able to offer
such a product today. Why?
First of all, CREE has been widely funded by DoD, DoE, DARPA and Navy contracts during these
last 20 years, meaning CREE had comfortable position to handle lots of experiments and improve
the technology for both LED and Power Electronics. So mastering SiC growth is probably a
question of money, but clearly a question of development time, that cannot be compressed.
It looks reasonable then to think there has been a cross-fertilization between LED and Power
businesses that allowed CREE to benefit from the LED mass manufacturing, which is probably
less stringent than power at wafer level, to fuel the power electronics side. Finally, the R&D efforts
have never ended, maintaining CREE leadership in the safe-area. Apart from receiving funding to
develop the technology, the only options to enter quickly in the SiC substrate battlefield appears to
be through M&A (Merger & Acquisition) of an existing activity or to buy a license and related
know-how, paying royalties in return. However who is for sale? Virtually nobody is at this current
time. Beyond the top five SiC substrate leaders, we don’t see a clear positioning of companies
who may want to participate in a sale or merger of their business. Ultimately, we should pay
attention to the new developments around LPE (Liquid Phase Epitaxy), done by Toyota, Denso or
Sumitomo, as well as 3C-SiC (Cubic) which may disrupt the current PVT domination.

3. KEY FEATURES OF THE REPORTS
This study presents the patent landscape for SiC single crystal and epiwafer over a total of 1772
patent families. Several key patents are selected based upon their interest regarding the particular
technological issues related to the SiC development, as well as their possible blocking factor for
new competing development.
The report puts in contrast the patent landscape with the current and expected market status,
highlighting the most active companies, the patent transfer and the sleeping IP. The document
also highlights and describes the key patents that could possibly block new comers, for both
crystal and epi-growth.
Thanks to more than 12 years involvement in the SiC field, Yole is able to present a unique cross-
analysis between market dynamics, technology improvement, industry shaping and related patent
activity.
The report goes along with Excel™ spreadsheets presenting the 1772 patents (Publication
Number, Publication Date, Priority Date, Title, Abstract, Assignee(s) and Inventor(s), Legal Status)
with direct link to the full patent text and pictures.
COMPANY INDEX
ABB, ACREO, AIST, Ascatron, ATMI, Bridgestone, C9 Corporation, Cabot, Cree, Crysband,
Denso, Dow Corning, Ecotron, Epiworld, Fuji Electric, Fujimi, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Hoya, II-VI, Infineon,
Kansai Electric Power, Kwansei Gakuin Univ., Mitsubishi, Mitsui, NASA, National Tsing Hua Univ.,
N-Crystals, NEC, NeoSemitech, Nippon Pillar Packing, Nippon Steel, NIRO, Nisshin Steel,
Norstel, North Carolina Univ., Northrop Grumann, NovaSiC, Okmetic, Panasonic, POSCO, Rohm,
Sanyo, SemiSouth, Sharp, Shikusuon, Shinetsu Chemical, Showa Denko, SiC Systems, SiCilab,
SiCrystal, Siemens, Sumitomo Metal Industries, TankeBlue, Toshiba, Toyota, TyanYue, TYSTC,
United Silicon Carbide, US Navy, Widetronix
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manufacturing.html
Major points covered in Table of Contents of this report include
Introduction
Context and frame of the survey
Definitions & glossary
Objective and methodology
Executive summary
Overview of SiC Substrate Market
SiC Raw Substrate Market
SiC bulk wafer manufacturing fundamentals
State-of-the-art in SiC Crystal Growth
SiC growth technologies main concepts

4. From polytype to devices
From Powder to SiC Epi-ready Wafers
SiC Crystal Growth Technique comparison table
Main SiC Material Manufacturing Site Locations
Commercially Available Material Polytypes, Doping & Orientation
Evolution of Relative Market Shares in the SiC Business
Current business model
Origin of SiC involvement
Status of the SiC wafer suppliers as of late 2011
Market Size Projection for SiC Substrates in Various Applications 2010-2020
Market volume projection split by diameter 2010-2020
Wafer Diameter Evolution in Production for Power Electronics: 2005-2020
Wafer Diameter Evolution in Production for GaN/SiC LED: 2005-2020
Wafer Diameter Evolution in Production for GaN/SiC RF devices: 2005-2020
SiC Epitaxy Market
SiC epi-wafer manufacturing fundamentals
Current business model
Status of the SiC epi-wafer suppliers as of late 2011
SiC Epi-house and Epi-service Offers
SiC Epitaxy evolution forecast
Opportunity for an epi-service house
SiC Epitaxy Market Estimate
The µm.wafer method
Annual Volume of Epitaxy Demand in µm.wafer split by application to 2020
Market Projection for SiC Epitaxy Demand to 2020
Outsourced SiC Epitaxy Business Revenues to 2020
Typical process time
SiC Patent Landscape
Evolution of SiC patent publication time-line
Regional distribution of patents based on
priority & publication country
Regional comparison of % of filed patents vs. revenues by headquarter location
Regional distribution of patents priority time-line
TOP-20 leading patent applicants
TOP-15 leading patent applicants over the time
TOP-15 leading patent applicants by publication country
Assignee collaboration network
Keyword and strategy of research for the technological segmentation

5. SiC patents, by technology
Company assignee vs. technology matrix
Company assignee vs. technology matrix: Analysis
Focus on SiC single-crystal patent landscape
The 4 main technologies for SiC single-crystal growth
SiC single-crystal growth patents time-line
SiC single-crystal growth patent companies involvement
TOP-15 leading patent applicants over the time for SiC finishing
Focus on Physical Vaport Transport (PVT)
Patent time-line
PVT patents company involvement
TOP-15 leading patent applicants over the time for PVT
Focus on Liquid Phase Epitaxy (LPE)
Patent time-line
LPE patents company involvement
TOP-15 leading patent applicants over the time for LPE
Key patents in SiC crystal growth
How did we select key patents ?
Key patents / issues / timeline
North Carolina State University, Raleigh (US)
Nisshin Steel (JP): sublimation process
Siemens (DE): Sublimation reactor design
ABB Research (CH) & Okmetic (FI): HTCVD method
Northrop Grummann (US): Vanadium-doped S.I. SiC
Northrop Grummann (US): seed enlargement
CREE (US): Vanadium-free S.I. SiC
Sumitomo (JP): LPE technique
CREE (US): low dislocation density
CREE (US): defects reduction
Nippon Steel (JP): Va-doped method
CREE (US): High-resistivity SiC crystal
CREE (US): low micropipe density
Toyota (J): LPE technology
SiC epitaxy
SiC epitaxy patents time-line
SiC epitaxy patent companies involvement

6. TOP-15 leading patent applicants over the time for SiC finishing
Focus on nH-SiC polytype epitaxy
Focus on 3C-SiC polytype
Focus on defect reduction
Focus on Semi-insulating & p-type
Key patents in SiC epitaxy
How did we select key patents ?
Key patents / issues / timeline
Fujitsu (J): 3C SiC epitaxy
North Carolina State University, Raleigh (US)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (US)
Panasonic (J): CVD growth
Mitsubishi (J)
ATMI (US): off-cut epitaxy
AIST (J)
CREE (US)
Toshiba (J): 3C SiC epitaxy
Hoya (J): ondulant substrate for 3C growth
National Tsing Hua University (TW): 3C SiC
SiC finishing
SiC finishing patents time-line
SiC finishing patent companies involvement
TOP-15 leading patent applicants over the time for crystal growth
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