Mitsubishi Electric and Coherent Enter into A Collaboration to Scale Manufacturing of SiC Power Electronics on A 200 mm Technology Platform

TOKYO & PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (TOKYO:6503) and Coherent Corp. (NYSE: COHR), a global leader in materials, networking, and lasers, today announced that they have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to collaborate on a program to scale manufacturing of SiC power electronics on a 200 mm technology platform.

The market for electric vehicles is expanding worldwide and is just one of several emerging applications driving the exponential growth in SiC power devices, which have lower energy losses, higher operating temperatures, and higher switching speeds compared with power devices based on silicon. The high efficiency of SiC power devices is expected to be a significant contributor to global decarbonization and the green transformation.

To meet the rapidly growing demand, Mitsubishi Electric announced an investment of approximately 260 billion yen in the five-year period ending March 2026. A major portion of the investment, approximately 100 billion yen, will be used to construct a new plant for SiC power devices, based on a 200 mm technology platform, and enhance related production facilities. Under the MOU, Coherent will develop a supply of 200 mm n-type 4H SiC substrates for Mitsubishi Electric’s future SiC power devices manufactured at the new facility.

Coherent has decades of experience in the development of SiC materials. The company demonstrated the world’s first 200 mm conductive substrates in 2015. In 2019, Coherent began to supply 200 mm SiC substrates under REACTION, a Horizon 2020 four-year program funded by the European Commission.

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