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4 Million Euros Series A Round for Ascatron SiC Devices

May 18, 2016 by Jeff Shepard

Ascatron AB has received A-round financing for the development of its first SiC products. The total of €4m consists of €3m in equity capital and €1m in an innovation grant. Investors include four Italy- and China-based venture capital investors Quadrivio (through its venture capital fund TTVenture) and Como Venture (which together took a 16.7% stake in Ascatron last October) as well as Rise Leader Investment and InteBridge Technology, together LPE SpA (which designs and makes epitaxial reactors for power electronics). The grant comes from the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) through KIC InnoEnergy (which supports innovation projects in sustainable energy).

"We have started to implement our advanced material technology in production equipment for SiC epitaxy," says chief technology officer Adolf Schöner. "The next step is to optimize our device design and outsource the remaining manufacturing of the chip to a foundry with capacity for volume production," he adds.

Ascatron started the operation in 2011 as a provider of SiC founder services using the SiC fabrication technology developed at the Swedish research institute Acreo. The company is currently using the established 4” wafer SiC process line at the Electrum Laboratory.

Ascatron is investing in new production equipment to increase the capacity and throughput of the advanced SiC epitaxy service to 5000 wafers per year. In our roadmap to serve the growing SiC industry we plan to build up a dedicated large volume SiC device production fab capable of handling more than 50000 150mm wafers per year.

"Our investors have a good mix of understanding both the advanced material technology needed for high-performance SiC power devices, and how to address volume markets for semiconductors," says CEO Christian Vieider. "40% of the market for power electronic components is in China, and there is a lot of interest in SiC for energy saving."