On October 26, Hunan Titan Future Technology Co., Ltd. announced the development and production of China's first 12-inch polycrystalline silicon carbide (SiC) substrate.
According to reports, this material achieves a thermal conductivity of over 280 W/(m·K), more than twice that of traditional silicon-based materials. It is primarily targeted at AI computing chips and advanced packaging, serving as a heat-spreading substrate within package structures to mitigate heat accumulation during the operation of high-power chips.
The product is currently in the sample validation and small-batch trial production phase. It has completed validation by leading enterprises and is expected to achieve scaled supply after 2027.
12-inch SiC substrates are not new—last year, SICC produced a 12-inch SiC substrate, but that followed the single-crystal route, mainly serving power semiconductors. Titan Future's "first" refers to the polycrystalline route.
In single-crystal SiC, atomic arrangements throughout the material are uniform and the crystal structure is intact. This allows high-performance devices to be grown on its surface, making it an essential substrate for power chips and RF devices. However, growing single crystals requires slow cultivation in high-temperature chambers above 2300°C, resulting in low speed and high costs; larger sizes become increasingly difficult to produce.
Polycrystalline SiC, on the other hand, consists of countless small grains "stitched" together, with atomic arrangements not pursuing uniformity. While it cannot be used for chip devices, it is better suited for heat-dissipation substrates—preparation does not require high-temperature crystal growth, making it easier to scale up and lower cost, with isotropic and more uniform thermal conductivity.
Therefore, superiority depends on application: Single-crystal is mandatory if devices are to be fabricated on the substrate; polycrystalline is sufficient and more cost-effective if the goal is merely rapid heat dissipation. The packaging heat-dissipation scenario targeted by Titan Future is precisely the domain where polycrystalline SiC excels.
This substrate has attracted attention because it addresses one of the most pressing issues in current AI chips—thermal management.
With single-GPU power consumption now surging past 1000W, heat dissipation has become one of the biggest bottlenecks limiting further increases in computing power. Traditional silicon materials have a thermal conductivity of only about 148 W/(m·K), which is clearly insufficient. Polycrystalline SiC offers double the thermal performance of silicon. Used as a heat-spreading substrate in packages, it significantly alleviates chip heating and accumulation. Moreover, its 12-inch size aligns with mainstream wafers, allowing direct integration into existing advanced packaging lines, facilitating cost amortization.
However, achieving both large size and uniformity is not easy.
A 12-inch area is 2.25 times that of an 8-inch wafer. During deposition, slight fluctuations in temperature or airflow can cause deviations in thickness and performance across the entire substrate. Larger areas make thermal stress harder to control, potentially leading to warping or even cracking, making yield difficult to guarantee. Additionally, indicators such as high thermal conductivity, high purity, low porosity, and surface flatness constrain each other. Achieving all these simultaneously on a large scale tests full-chain process capabilities.