ST gets €2bn grant for Catania SiC site

“The Catania campus will help reverse the tendency of over-reliance on imports of devices that are particularly relevant for the European digital and green transition objectives,” says the EC, noting its “wide positive effects for the European semiconductor ecosystem”.

’These facilities will form ST’s Silicon Carbide Campus, realising the Company’s vision of a fully vertically integrated manufacturing facility for the mass production of SiC on one site,’ says ST, ‘the creation of the new Silicon Carbide Campus is a key milestone to support customers for SiC devices across automotive, industrial and cloud infrastructure applications, as they transition to electrification and seek higher efficiency.’

“The fully integrated capabilities unlocked by the Silicon Carbide Campus in Catania will contribute significantly to ST’s SiC technology leadership for automotive and industrial customers through the next decades,” says ST CEO Jean-Marc Chery, “the scale and synergies offered by this project will enable us to better innovate with high-volume manufacturing capacity, to the benefit of our European and global customers as they transition to electrification and seek more energy efficient solutions to meet their decarbonization goals.”

The Silicon Carbide Campus will serve as the center of ST’s global SiC ecosystem, integrating all steps in the production flow, including SiC substrate development, epitaxial growth processes, 200mm front-end wafer fabrication and module back-end assembly, as well as process R&D, product design, advanced R&D labs for dies, power systems and modules, and full packaging capabilities. This will achieve a first of a kind in Europe for the mass production of 200mm SiC wafers with each step of the process – substrate, epitaxy & front-end, and back-end – using 200 mm technologies for enhanced yields and performances.

The new facility is targeted to start production in 2026 and to ramp to full capacity by 2033, with up to 15,000 wafers per week at full build-out. The total investment is expected to be around five billion euros, with a support of around two billion euros provided by the State of Italy within the framework of the EU Chips Act. Sustainable practices are integral to the design, development, and operation of the Silicon Carbide Campus to ensure the responsible consumption of resources including water and power.