Recently, the globally renowned power semiconductor company Infineon demonstrated its long-term strategic vision and announced a grand blueprint to invest up to 5 billion euros in the next five years. The core of this plan is to build an unprecedented 8-inch silicon carbide (SIC) power wafer factory in Malaysia, which is bound to have a profound impact on the global semiconductor industry. This investment amount far exceeds Infineon's initial investment plan in February 2022, demonstrating the company's ambition in the field of power semiconductors.

It is reported that this investment will mainly be applied to the second phase expansion project of the Kurim factory in Malaysia. It is expected that by the end of this decade, SiC products will bring about $7 billion in annual revenue potential to Infineon. To achieve this goal, Infineon also plans to renovate its factory located in Villach, Germany to become a professional 8-inch SiC wafer factory. Infineon's ultimate vision is to increase its market share in the SiC market to over 30% by the end of this decade.

In this battle for the world's largest SiC wafer fab, Infineon is not the only competitor. Industry giants such as STMicroelectronics and Wolfspeed are also actively expanding their production capacity, which is undoubtedly an urgent challenge for other semiconductor manufacturers. They must accelerate their pace to ensure the supply capacity of silicon carbide power devices.

It is worth noting that STMicroelectronics has partnered with Sanan Optoelectronics in Chongqing, China to establish an 8-inch SiC manufacturing joint venture, further consolidating its approximately 50% share in the automotive SiC market. OnSemi has also pledged a new investment of $2 billion to expand its factory's SiC production after signing a ten-year SiC agreement with automotive electronics manufacturer Vitesco Technologies and a supply agreement with electric vehicle charger manufacturer Kempower.

On the other hand, X-Fab announced an investment of $200 million to expand its chip factory in Lubbock, Texas, to meet the growing demand for SiC devices in the market. Bosch has also accelerated the expansion of its SiC chip portfolio by acquiring TSI Semiconductors, a US semiconductor foundry.

Wolfspeed is also unwilling to fall behind and has decided to build the first 8-inch wafer factory for SiC device production in Europe, with plans to implement it in Saarland, Germany. This is part of its $6.5 billion capacity expansion plan, and the company will also expand its SiC business in the United States. Renesas Electronics also confirmed in August this year that it will pay Wolfspeed $1 billion to purchase its power devices, and plans to pay the same amount again next year.

With the increasing demand in fields such as electric vehicles and renewable energy, the SiC semiconductor market is experiencing rapid expansion. Texas Instruments, Skyworks and other companies are also accelerating the development of SiC semiconductor products for the automotive market, striving to seize this trend.

In the current era where electrified vehicle models have become the mainstream of the automotive market transformation, the demand for SiC semiconductor products has surged. At the same time, to address climate change, global investment in renewable energy such as solar and wind energy is also increasing, which cannot be achieved without the support of power chips such as SiC. In this context, the global expansion of SiC wafer fabs is in full swing. Fushite Technology is deeply involved in the field of power devices, providing customers with power devices such as IGBT, IPM modules, microcontrollers, touch chips, etc. It is an electronic component supplier and solution provider with core technology.