Lock upstream SOI wafer core and sign a long-term supply agreement with Global Crystal to grab 5G application business opportunities

On June 8th, the world's top three silicon wafer manufacturers global globular crystal (Global Wafers) announced that it had signed a long-term supply contract of US $800,000,000 worth of 12-inch silicon (SOI) wafers on 12-inch insulators with the global special process chip foundry leading lattice core (Global Foundries).

Under the agreement, Global Crystal will increase 12-inch SOI wafer production and expand 8-inch SOI wafer capacity at its existing fab in St. Peters, Missouri, to increase the supply of lattice-core SOI wafers. The total cost of the long-term cooperation agreement is expected to be nearly $210 million over the next few years, and the production trial line of the 12-inch SOI wafer is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year.

Global Crystal is one of the long-term suppliers of lattice core SOI wafers. Last year, the cell core signed long-term supply agreements with global spheroids and French semiconductor material manufacturer Soitec for 12-inch SOI wafers.

The main reason for the deepening cooperation between the grid core and upstream SOI wafer suppliers is the growing demand for RF chips based on RF SOI technology in the 5G and IoT (Internet of things) era.

RF SOI wafer, a special process for 5G mobile phones, has a huge market space.

Grid Core's recent cooperation with upstream silicon wafer suppliers is mainly aimed at its RF SOI field.

RF SOI is a special process used to manufacture specific RF chips, such as switches and antenna tuners, in smartphones and other wireless products.

Judging from the current market share of SOI wafers, RF SOI applications account for about 60% of total SOI wafer sales, high-power Power SOI accounts for about 20%, and the rest are FD-SOI and other technology applications.

Smart phones have a huge demand for RF SOI process chips. With the development of 5G technology, RF SOI is expected to become one of the hottest technologies, and the overall market capacity and market share are expected to continue to expand in the future.

The core's 8SW RF SOI wafer customers are the mainstream FEM (front-end module) suppliers of 5G smartphones under 6GHz.

In addition to the grid core, TSMC, United Power, High Tower Semiconductor (Tower Jazz) and other leading foundry are expanding 12-inch RF SOI wafer production capacity to meet 5G and compete for the first wave of RF business.

Last October, Bami Bastani, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Mobile and Wireless Infrastructure, said: "eight out of every ten smartphones on the market today use chips made by Lattice Core, and as the industry moves to 5G, the demand for our distinctive RF solutions will continue to soar. Without grid core and our industry-leading professional RF solutions, 5G innovation would not have been possible. "

In terms of raw material suppliers, the SOI wafer faucet currently has a market share of more than 70% for the aforementioned Soitec,. Other suppliers include Japan's Shengko (SUMCO), Shinyue Shin-Etsu, China's Shanghai Xinao, Global Crystal and Hejing, among which Xinyue and Shanghai Xinao Technology are licensed from Soitec.

In terms of wafer foundry, the main leading factory is lattice core, while others include Samsung in South Korea, Italian Semiconductor in Switzerland, Israel Tower Jazz, China, SMIC, Huahong Hongli and Liandian.