Ascatron is specializing on the manufacturing of Silicon Carbide (SiC) semiconductors. Customers are suppliers of power devices and modules to the power electronic industry. The usage of SiC electronics increases the efficiency in power conversion products reducing electricity conversion losses by 50-75%. With the high power capability in SiC will every produced device wafer contribute to a substantial energy saving. For a continuous operation application like for example solar power, can this be in the order of 20 MWh per year, worth up to 100 KEuro per wafer during the 20 years life time. SiC semiconductors can also be used for high temperature electronics and sensors, which will enable new applications beyond the possibilities of traditional semiconductor devices.
The manufacturing of SiC devices needs dedicated equipment and advanced fabrication processes. Cost efficient production is only possible when the volume is large enough to fill up the process line. A foundry is able to share the investment in equipment, and the development of qualified fabrication processes between many customers. Ascatron is the first independent “pure play” SiC foundry offering the complete fabrication service from device epitaxy to diced wafers!
Ascatron started the operation in 2011 to scale-up the SiC fabrication technology developed at the Swedish research institute Acreo. We are using the established 4” wafer SiC process line at the Electrum Laboratory. Ascatron is investing in new production equipment to increase the capacity and throughput of the advanced SiC epitaxy service to 5000 wafers per year. In our roadmap to serve the growing SiC industry we plan to build up a dedicated large volume SiC device production fab capable of handling more than 50000 150mm wafers per year.
Founders
The Ascatron founders team have many years experience in the development of the SiC material and process technology for all kind of semiconductor devices.
Adolf Schöner - Director Technology & Sales. Responsible for the SiC activity at Acreo with long experience from international cooperation with Japanese, European and US companies. Technical expertise in SiC epitaxy and device development. PhD on SiC material characterization in Erlangen, Germany. German citizen born 1963.
Bo Hammarlund – Chairman & Business Development Manager. Serial entrepreneur starting companies such as TranSiC, Scint-X and SenSiC. TranSiC was recently sold to
Fairchild. Organizing the yearly SiC Application Workshop in Kista with participation from all leading SiC actors. Technical expertise in VPE epitaxy. Long experience in OEM electronics marketing and sales. Swedish citizen born 1955.
Christian Vieider – Managing Director. Business development manager at Acreo with long experience from cooperation with Swedish industry in various business areas. Technical expertise in MEMS devices. Start-up experience from biotech company Gnothis. Swedish citizen born 1962.
Sergey Reshanov – Development Manager. Responsible for the SiC epitaxy at Acreo with long experience from semiconductor process engineering. PhD on SiC device relevant defect centers and minority carrier lifetime in Erlangen, Germany. Russian citizen born 1974.
Wlodek Kaplan – Production Manager. Semiconductor lab manager at Acreo with long experience of small scale production and quality system in a multi-user clean-room laboratory. Responsibility for lab group with service and process personnel. Technical expertise in silicon VLSI and SiC processing. PhD on self-aligned Ti Silicide in Stockholm, Sweden. Polish citizen born 1956.
Acreo
Acreo AB is a research institute and part of Swedish ICT Research working with contract R&D in microelectronics, optics and communication technology. Turning academic research into commercial products, Acreo offers value-adding
technology solutions for growth and competitiveness in industry and society. Acreo has history of successful spin-off companies such as Proximion, Altitun, Silex Microsystems and IRnova.
- The development of the SiC processing technology was started 1993 at the Swedish research institute IMC (became Acreo 1998) in a joint project with ABB resulting in the demonstration of a 4.5 KV PiN-diode published 1999.
- Acreo developed a lateral epitaxy SiC MESFET and started the spin-off company AMDS in 2002 to commercialize the technology. AMDS was bought by Intrinsic and later incorporated within Cree.
- Acreo continued to develop the SiC epitaxy process and started to offer SiC epitaxy as a service to the SiC community, specialising on multilayer structures and re-growth on non-planar surfaces.
- Several SiC device concepts where developed and a collaboration with DENSO Corporation, Japan resulted in the realisation of a normally-off SiC JFET with ratings of 1.2 KV and 50 A.
