Currently the only machine of its kind, the BoulePro 200 allows for a much faster and cost-effective boule-to-puck conversion to meet the high demand for Silicon Carbide (SiC), a crucial semiconductor material. With its patent-pending Single-Step Dual-plane Compensation (SSDC), the BoulePro 200 takes what has traditionally been a multistage process performed on several machines and converts the process into a single-machine operation to dramatically improve efficiency and costs at every step.
Silicon Carbide is a semi-conducting or semi-insulating material used in many different types of electronic devices such as diodes, MOSFETS, JFETS, etc.
It is replacing Silicon based devices for applications that require high power density, high frequency, and high voltage applications
Electric Vehicles (EVs) and 5G are a major user of these types of devices
Silicon Carbide is grown via a Physical Vapor Transport (PVT) process in high temperature furnaces and it takes 2-4 weeks to grow a crystal (boule) that is only a few kilograms in size
The crystal then needs to be shaped into a wafer ready puck and then sliced into wafers for device makers to build on
It is this post growth processing step taking the as grown boule to a wafer ready puck for which Hardinge has developed an innovative solution