DENSO and United Semiconductor Japan Co., Ltd. (USJC), a subsidiary of global semiconductor foundry United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), announced a joint collaboration to produce insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT), which have entered mass production at the 300mm fab of USJC.

A first shipment ceremony was held to mark this milestone. It comes just one year after the companies announced a strategic partnership for this critical power semiconductor used in electric vehicles. (Earlier post.)

As adoption of electric vehicles accelerates, automakers are seeking to boost powertrain efficiency while also increasing cost-effectiveness of electrified vehicles. The jointly invested line at USJC supports the production of a new generation of IGBT developed by DENSO, which offers 20% reduction in power losses compared with earlier generation devices. Production is expected to reach 10,000 wafers per month by 2025.

Insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT) are core devices that act as switches in inverters to convert DC current from batteries to AC current to drive and control electric vehicle motors. Battery and plug-in electric cars require significantly more IGBT units than conventional ICE cars.

UMC’s comprehensive IC processing technologies and manufacturing solutions include Logic/Mixed-Signal, embedded High-Voltage, embedded Non-Volatile-Memory, RFSOI and BCD etc. Most of UMC's 12-in & 8-in fabs with its core R&D are located in Taiwan, with additional ones throughout Asia. UMC has total 12 fabs in production with combined capacity of approximately 850,000 wafers per month (8-in equivalent), and all of them are certified with IATF 16949 automotive quality standard. UMC is headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, plus local offices in United States, Europe, China, Japan, Korea & Singapore, with worldwide total 20,000 employees.