Commercial Silicon Carbide Crystal Growth Reactor Viability

Silicon has been the material of choice for semiconductor manufacturers for well over 50 years. Silicon has inherent problems relating to high power, high heat generating devices, and mobility lifetimes, so a new material needs to be developed to answer and solve the limitations of silicon. While silicon has limitations, the infrastructure is well established and companies excel at providing “turn-key” systems to universities or businesses wishing to explore the silicon crystal growth market. Silicon Carbide (SiC) is a new and promising substitute for silicon but the industry suffers from the ability to break into the market due to the lack of “turn-key” systems. Currently, companies performing SiC crystal growth manufacture their systems in-house or buy a silicon styled system and modify or retrofit to grow silicon carbide. This method is unsuited to proper manufacturing techniques due to each system being hand built and a “one-off” system which is not repeatable from run to run and this limits the possibility of companies entering the market. A company must employ highly skilled engineers or scientists for electrical, mechanical, thermal dynamics, as well as silicon carbide growth kinetics to design and assemble these systems. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of establishing a company to manufacture “turn-key” systems and market those systems to the current SiC industry manufacturers and new companies or universities wishing to enter the market