Kuan-Ming Hsiung, board chairman of GCCS, said, “By combining our manufacturing scale with America’s leading academic institution, we are taking decisive action to secure the domestic supply chain for silicon carbide. This collaboration is not merely about advancing materials; it is about establishing the resilient, high-yield manufacturing capacity within the United States that is absolutely essential for national tech security and the future of global critical infrastructure.”

Why silicon carbide matters

Silicon carbide is a wide band gap semiconductor. It offers a breakdown electric field roughly ten times that of conventional silicon, as well as higher thermal conductivity and the ability to operate at junction temperatures above 200°C. These properties allow SiC-based devices, primarily MOSFETs and Schottky diodes, to switch faster and dissipate less energy than their silicon counterparts at equivalent voltage ratings, which translates directly into smaller, lighter power modules and higher system efficiency.

Demand for SiC has grown sharply, supply, however, has struggled to keep pace as SiC wafer production is capital-intensive, yield-sensitive, and constrained by a limited number of qualified substrate suppliers globally.

The partnership between Purdue and GCCS is oriented towards bridging the gap between laboratory-scale SiC research and volume-intensive manufacturing processes. Purdue’s semiconductor fabrication infrastructure and materials science expertise are expected to support process development work that GCCS can carry forward into production environments.

Taiwan-based GCCS specializes in advanced silicon carbide crystal growth, which directly unlocks three critical hardware barriers constraining high-performance computing and telecommunication technologies. These include:

Thermal management: SiC serves as a superior wafer substrate, enabling advanced cooling via microchanneling in chip-on-wafer-on-substrate and chip-on-panel-on-substrate packaging platforms.

Power delivery: SiC modernizes grid-to-server power conversion with breakthrough efficiencies utilizing high-voltage direct current transmission and solid-state transformers.

6G telecommunications: SiC provides the essential material efficiency required for devices powering next-generation connectivity.

By breaking through these physical constraints, GCCS is engineering the material backbone for the future of AI and global communications. Joint Purdue and GCCS research will focus on isolating crystal defects and optimizing silicon carbide material growth to accelerate the transition to high-yield 8-inch and 12-inch wafer platforms.

Manufacturing scale-up

Transitioning SiC processes from research fabs to high-volume manufacturing introduces challenges that go beyond materials quality. Epitaxial growth of SiC on wafers requires temperatures above 2732°F and precise precursor chemistry; even small process deviations can generate micropipe defects that render devices inoperable. Downstream lithography and ion implantation steps are also more demanding than for silicon, partly because SiC’s hardness complicates polishing and etch uniformity.

Cost remains a structural issue. SiC wafers are several times more expensive per unit area than comparable silicon substrates, and while device efficiency gains can offset system-level costs, the economics depend heavily on achieving high wafer yields. Partnerships between university research groups and commercial entities have historically served as one mechanism for de-risking early-stage process improvements before they are committed to a production line.

The global SiC market is currently dominated by a small number of producers, including Wolfspeed, Coherent, and STMicroelectronics, all of which have announced multi-billion-dollar capacity expansions in recent years. University-industry partnerships like the one Purdue is entering with GCCS represent a different approach — one focused on process innovation rather than raw capacity addition.

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