Denso, UMC ship their first automotive IGBTs from 300mm wafers
Denso has started shipping the first silicon IGBTs developed in partnership with foundry UMC.
The devices, developed with UMC’s subsidiary United Semiconductor Japan (USJC) on a jointly funded 300mm wafer line, reduce the power losses by 20%. Production is expected to
This comes just one year after the companies announced a strategic partnership for this critical power semiconductor used in electric vehicles.
The ceremony was held today at USJC’s fab in Mie Prefecture, Japan. Attendees included DENSO President Koji Arima, UMC Co-President Jason Wang, Director-General of the Commerce and Information Policy Bureau at Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) Satoshi Nohara, Governor of Mie Prefecture Katsuyuki Ichimi, and Mayor of Kuwana City Narutaka Ito.
“Today, we are thrilled to welcome a memorable shipping ceremony that symbolizes the partnership between DENSO, UMC and USJC. We are from different cultures such as semiconductor industry and automobile industry. However, we have worked steadily with mutual respect which is a source of our strong competitiveness. DENSO, together with our trusted partners, will continue to further accelerate electrification through the production of competitive semiconductors in order to preserve the global environment and create a society full of smiles,” said Koji Arima, President of Denso.
“USJC is proud to be the first semiconductor foundry in Japan to manufacture IGBT on 300mm wafers, offering customers greater production efficiency than the standard fabrication on 200mm wafers. Thanks to our dedicated teams and support from DENSO, we were able to complete trial production and reliability testing without delay and honor the mass production date as agreed with the customer,” said Michiari Kawano, President of USJC.
“It is an honour to be a strategic partner of Denso, a leading automotive solution provider to global automakers. This collaboration fully demonstrates UMC’s manufacturing capability and our collaborative approach to ensure the success of our foundry customers,” said Jason Wang, Co-President of UMC.
“The electrification and automation of cars will continue to drive up semiconductor content, particularly for chips manufactured using specialty foundry processes on 28nm and above nodes. As a specialty technology leader, UMC is well positioned to play a bigger role in the automotive value chain and enabling our partners to capture opportunities and win market share in this rapidly evolving industry.”
* Insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) is a core device that acts as a switch in inverters to convert DC current from batteries to AC current to drive and control electric vehicle motors. Battery and plug-in electric cars require significantly more IGBT units than conventional ICE cars.
Most of UMC’s 12-in & 8-in fabs with its core R&D are located in Taiwan, with additional ones throughout Asia. UMC has total 12 fabs in production with combined capacity of approximately 850,000 wafers per month (8-in equivalent), and all of them are certified with IATF 16949 automotive quality standard.
www.denso.com/global; www.umc.com.
