Infineon Technologies has announced the acquisition of Siltectra, a Dresden-based start-up which developed an innovative technology, named Cold Split, for processing crystal material. The company was acquired for EUR 124 million (US$141.38 million).

With the acquisition, Infineon aims to adopt Cold Split technology to split silicon carbide (SiC) wafers, doubling the number of chips out of one wafer. “This acquisition will help us expand our excellent portfolio with the new material silicon carbide as well. Our system understanding and our unique know how on thin wafer technology will be ideally complemented by the Cold Split technology and the innovative capacity of Siltectra,” said Dr. Reinhard Ploss, CEO of Infineon. “Thanks to the Cold Split technology, the higher number of SiC wafers will make the ramp-up of our SiC products much easier, especially regarding further expansion of renewable energies and the increasing adaptation of SiC for use in the drive train of electrical vehicles.”

(Image: Infineon)

Siltectra was founded in 2010 and owns more than 50 patents. The company developed a technology for splitting crystalline materials with minimal loss of material compared to common sawing technologies. This technology can also be applied with the semiconductor material SiC, for which rapidly rising demand is expected in the coming years. As SiC is going to be critical in electro-mobility applications, the Cold Split technology will help to improve SiC production and speed up related applications.

The technology will be industrialized at the existing Siltectra site in Dresden and at the Infineon site in Villach, Austria. The transition to volume production is expected to be completed within the next five years.

Dr. Jan Richter, CTO of Siltectra, said, “We are glad to become part of the team of the global market leader in power semiconductors. Having shown that the Cold Split technology can be used at Infineon in principle, we will now work together to transfer it to volume production.”