How is Silicon Carbide Manufactured?

The simplest method of manufacturing silicon carbide is to melt silica sand and carbon (such as coal) at high temperatures up to 2,500 degrees Celsius.

 The darker and more common silicon carbide usually contains impurities of iron and carbon, but pure silicon carbide crystals are colorless and are formed

 when silicon carbide sublimes at 2,700 degrees Celsius. After heating, these crystals are deposited onto graphite at lower temperatures, a process known 

as the Lely method.

The Lely method: In this process, a granite crucible is usually heated to an extremely high temperature by induction heating to sublime the silicon carbide powder.

 A graphite rod at a lower temperature is suspended in the gas mixture, which naturally allows pure silicon carbide to deposit and form crystals.

Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD): In addition, manufacturers also use chemical vapor deposition to grow cubic silicon carbide, which is widely used in carbon-based

 synthesis processes and the semiconductor industry. In this method, a special gas mixture enters a vacuum environment and undergoes a mixing reaction before

 being deposited on a substrate.

Both of these methods for producing silicon carbide wafers require a great deal of energy, equipment, and expertise to be successful.

What are the Uses of Silicon Carbide? The Advantages of Silicon Carbide.

1.Silicon carbide has excellent heat resistance and is often used in heat exchangers. It can withstand temperatures up to 1,400 degrees Celsius with minimal performance 

degradation. In addition, its Young's modulus value indicates that it still has extremely high strength at stress levels up to 200 MPa.

2.Silicon carbide has excellent chemical stability, which greatly enhances its wear resistance. Compared with alumina and other refractory materials, it has excellent 

corrosion resistance in high-temperature gases, liquids, and reducing environments. And when exposed to oxidizing and reducing environments, its hardness is 50% 

higher than that of tungsten carbide, making it particularly resistant to erosion and wear caused by rotational and sliding friction.

Some studies have been conducted to determine the effect of wear on the performance of sintered alumina silicon carbide, boron carbide, and XAR 600 steel. The results

 show that under all tested soil conditions, the wear resistance of nitride-bonded silicon carbide is significantly higher than that of other materials. Especially in a light soil 

environment, its wear resistance is 1.2 times higher than that of XAR 600 steel and 8 times higher than that of B27 steel under the same light conditions.

In recent years, silicon carbide has become a key player in the semiconductor industry, powering metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs), Schottky 

diodes, and power modules for high-power, high-efficiency applications. Although silicon carbide is more expensive than silicon-based MOSFETs (the breakdown voltage 

of silicon-based MOSFETs is usually limited to 900 volts), the voltage threshold of silicon carbide can be close to 10 kV.

Silicon carbide also has very low switching losses and can support high operating frequencies, enabling it to achieve unmatched efficiency, especially in applications above

 600 volts. Through proper application, silicon carbide devices can reduce the losses of converter and inverter systems by nearly 50%, reduce the size by 300%, and reduce

 the overall system cost by 20%. The reduction in overall system size makes silicon carbide extremely useful in applications where weight and space are critical.

The Applications of Silicon Carbide

The applications of silicon carbide include the manufacturing of abrasive products and refractory materials. Due to its extremely high hardness and chemical inertness, 

silicon carbide is very suitable for manufacturing high-temperature refractory materials, such as refractory materials for building sanitary ceramics kiln furniture, furnace

 linings, test bricks, muffle furnaces, and boiler furnace walls.

Due to the automotive industry's demand for high quality, reliability, and efficiency, silicon carbide has become increasingly popular in this field. Silicon carbide can 

excellently meet the demand for high voltage. Silicon carbide has the potential to increase the range of electric vehicles by improving the overall system efficiency, especially

 the efficiency of the inverter system. This not only improves the overall energy efficiency of the vehicle but also reduces the size and weight of the battery management system.

In the solar energy industry, the optimization of silicon carbide-based inverters also plays an important role in improving efficiency and saving costs. The use of silicon carbide

 in solar inverters can increase the switching frequency of the system two to three times higher than that of standard silicon. The increase in switching frequency reduces the

 magnetic components in the circuit, thus greatly saving space and costs. Therefore, the silicon carbide-based inverter design is almost half the size and weight of the 

silicon-based inverter. Another factor that prompts solar manufacturers and engineers to choose silicon carbide over other materials such as gallium nitride is the strong 

durability and reliability of silicon carbide. The reliability of silicon carbide enables solar systems to achieve a stable service life and meet the demand for continuous operation

 for more than a decade.