While creating two-dimensional semiconductor materials at Penn State, Joshua Robinson has always focused on the end game. He’s interested in advancing science, but—most importantly—he’s interested in driving industry advances via research and discovery.
Something he recently created at Penn State has the promise to do that.
The newly launched onsemi Silicon Carbide Crystal Center (SiC3) at Penn State—a center created exclusively with more than $14 million in industry, academic, and government funding— has the potential to expand a University-industry partnership while driving workforce development across the entire Appalachian Region of the U.S.
The center is part of the greater Silicon Carbide Innovation Alliance (SCIA), a coalition of industry leaders, academic institutions and government support with a focus on becoming the nation's central hub for research, development, and workforce training in SiC crystal technology. onsemi is pledging $8 million over 10 years and a continuously growing list of SCIA founding partners, including Morgan Advanced Materials, Pureon, Zadient, Lapmaster-Walter, and several others in negotiation at the time of this publication are collectively pledging an additional roughly $500,000 annually, with similar amounts of in-kind material donations.
SiC for today and tomorrow
That effort centers around one material: SiC. It’s a superior semiconductor to silicon for nearly all energy-intense applications. As we move toward a greener energy landscape, SiC beats silicon on nearly all counts: The wide bandgap allows SiC to handle much higher voltages and temperatures while being manufactured in a smaller footprint. In the age of high voltage power transmission and switching for electric transportation, supercomputing and military applications, it’s a must.
The con? Cost.
The main drawback is that SiC is incredibly expensive and energy intensive to make. It starts with a K-Cup-style graphite crucible where a base SiC material in either powder or chip form is heated using microwaves to 2,100 degrees Celsius (3,812 degrees Fahrenheit)—nearly half the surface temperature of the sun—for a period of ten days. During this time, a dome-like crystal known as a boule forms like a stalactite at the top of the crucible, is removed and then heated for an additional few days to burn away the remains of the graphite around the boule, ultimately yielding an SiC crystal covered in an oxide that gives it its rainbow color. Each run can cost as much as $8,000-15,000, depending on material source.
After that, the ultra-hard material is processed with the only thing harder: diamond. Boule processing technology is continually evolving, but the current process involves slicing the boule with diamond wire, then grinding and lapping the slices—called wafers—with diamond pads and slurries, and finally polishing to near atomic smoothness using a combination of chemical and mechanical processes.
Subsequently, a thin layer of ultra-high purity SiC is grown on the SiC wafer and electronic devices are fabricated on the surface before they are diced and packaged into the “widgets” that control the flow of electricity for many advanced energy applications. There can be as many as 2,000 steps from start to finish, but the single most expensive part of the process is growing and processing the SiC boule.
Typically, the manufacturing process takes place at various sites all around the world, but the sharing of technology is largely secret among manufacturers and is not standardized. That’s stifled both advances in research and workforce development. Those issues are what prompted industry leaders at onsemi to partner with Robinson and Penn State.
“Companies have been making SiC for decades but there’s a vast amount of research that’s been overlooked,” Robinson said. “That’s why they’re so interested in partnering with Penn State. Through this industry partnership, we’re going to be able to shine a light on the fundamental science behind industrial-scale crystal growth while putting the tools in place to train workers with that knowledge.”
The need for SiC semiconductors already outpaces supply in the U.S. and is expected to grow by more than 200 percent by 2030, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Industrial scale manufacturing
Often, materials are created on a research scale at the University’s state-of-the-art Materials Research Institute. The onsemi SiC3 and Penn State’s SCIA are different. Securing $3 million in Air Force funding— matched by Penn State—Robinson secured 2,400 sq. ft. in research space in the EMS Energy Institute for the planned installation of four industrial-scale SiC furnaces and all necessary equipment to process the boules into wafers.
This facility is allowing his team—led by T. Andrew Bowen, a doctoral candidate in materials science and engineering—to create industrial size, 6-inch and 8-inch SiC boules while researching the industrial-scale process. They’ll be able to use the same tools they use for materials research to shed light on best synthesis practices and create standards that lead to the best SiC yields.
Leveraging the expertise of professor and SCIA Associate Director Adri van Duin and Yuan Xuan, associate professor of mechanical engineering, they’ll create digital twins of the furnaces to accelerate rapidly toward optimized SiC crystal growth processes.
Bowen is about to earn his Ph.D. and planned to relocate but the prospect of this new project convinced him to stay.
“What the alliance is hoping to accomplish is too exciting to pass up,” Bowen said. “I really, truly believe in both the research and the workforce development that is going to be accomplished here. I couldn’t imagine a better position just after graduating.”
While Penn State is finalizing the research space, Bowen and newly hired research engineering assistant, Ian Binnie, have been busy growing boules in upstate New York in space loaned from industry partner Aymont Technologies.
Bowen is approaching the manufacturing process from a research and discovery point of view, but he said that’s not what excites him most about the project. He’s a former active duty Army veteran with ties to Pennsylvania and the Appalachian Region. He likes the prospect of helping to create new jobs in the semiconductor industry, particularly for his fellow veterans.
Driving workforce development
It’s not just the Penn State team who are excited at the prospect of workforce development.
The Appalachian Regional Commission—an economic development partnership agency of the federal government and thirteen state governments including Pennsylvania—this year awarded Penn State $600,000 to develop a series of educational courses, workshops, and paid academic and industrial internships focused on workforce development in Pennsylvania for the growing semiconductor industry.
Co-lead by Prof. Suzanne Mohney, professor of materials science and engineering and electrical engineering, a team at the Materials Characterization Laboratory are rapidly pulling together for-credit courses to be offered in spring 2025 and workshops in summer 2025 focused on semiconductor characterization for a broad spectrum of education levels.
David Fecko, director of MRI industry collaborations, says usually these partnerships begin with a lot of asking on Penn State’s part but, with the SCIA, the companies are driving the talks.
“There seems to be an unmet need out there for this type of facility,” Fecko said. “It’s because silicon carbide is such a big growth area; it’s in rapid expansion.”
Beginning of something big
In October, Robinson and the SCIA team attended the International Conference of Silicon Carbide and Related Materials when he fully realized this could have a big impact and was generating more buzz than he’s accustomed to. He’s used to a few faculty inquiring about collaborations. But, for the first time, he saw a line of people from industry at the SCIA exhibit.
“We probably had fifty companies tell us the work we’re doing is of significant interest. They said they love what we’re doing because it’s been needed for decades,” Robinson said.
It was then that he realized that this was something bigger, with the potential for greater impact that extended beyond Penn State.
He said partnerships like this are exactly what a land-grant University can accomplish. His team can drive fundamental research, improve industrial-scale manufacturing, and train the next generation of workers to roll out this technology.
“This partnership could impact an industry and a community equally, and very positively,” Robinson said. “I’m excited about its potential for the commonwealth and the nation.”
For more information or for potential membership to SCIA, please visit www.scia.psu.edu or email SCIA@psu.edu