Aixtron purpose of this thread

... die Chinesen werden den Ausgang der Verhandlungen über die  Zölle der importierten E-Autos abwarten.  

Langt  die EU hier heftig zu ( wir in D sind ja nicht so dafür) ... Ja dann wird es für den
deutschen Mittelstand unschön.

 

From the Chinese press:

In May this year (2024), Sanan Semiconductor officially revealed that its chairman Lin Zhidong was recently invited to attend the sixth meeting of the China-France Entrepreneurs Committee.

During the meeting, Lin Zhidong introduced the latest progress of Hunan Sanan SiC project - the first phase of Hunan silicon carbide semiconductor industrialization project has been fully put into production, and the annual production capacity of SiC has reached 250,000 pieces (equivalent to 6 inches); the second phase of the project is progressing steadily, and will fully introduce the world's leading 8-inch production equipment and processes, and is scheduled to be put into production in the third quarter of this year . After the entire project reaches full production, it will achieve a total annual production capacity of 480,000 pieces.

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I have posted earlier that Hunan Sanan is seeking engineers with Aixtron experience.  It is logical to assume that Aixtron's G10-SiC is in play.

For 480,000 annual capacity, that would be about 50 G10-SiC.  However, Hunan Sanann might dual source to LPE which is also qualified as a "World's leading 8-inch production equipment".  I don't think any Chinese SiC equipments are qualified as "World leading".


 

https://www.reuters.com/technology/...or-wafer-production-2024-07-17/  

From a Taiwanese news (edited):

Xu Xiulan (Doris Hsu), chairman of the silicon wafer manufacturer GlobalWafers ( 6488-TW ), said today (17th) that the company has entered the third-generation semiconductor supply chain in the United States, providing customers with 6-inch and 8-inch products, and has passed the certification of first-tier manufacturers. Currently, In the United States, the Epi manufacturing plant is the main one in Texas, and because Texas has advantages in electricity and land costs, it is not ruled out that the SiC  Wafer crystal growth process will be extended to Texas in the future.

Xu Xiulan said that GlobalWafers has a layout for silicon carbide and gallium nitride. Among them, silicon carbide is currently used as wafer in Taiwan, and Epi is produced in Texas, including 6 inches and 8 inches. It has been in production for two years and has also won first-tier awards in the United States and Europe. Certification from a major manufacturer, so if customers buy the company's silicon carbide Epi, the company will ship from the United States, and it is also expected to increase its epitaxial wafer production capacity.
----------------------
Note that Globitech is part of GlobalWafers in Sheramn Tx.

https://www.aixtron.com/en/investors/...0the%2520SiC%2520market_n2728

 

Hi all,

I thought this news by OnSemi, a large Aixtron customer in SIC as we know, published this interesting news yesterday. I am surprised that this has not been picked up in a bigger way yet, but I think this is important as SIC growth is determined by 2 factors: a) a growing EV market overall and b) a broadening out of SIC chips across the entire car spectrum. While a) seems to be struggeling at the moment (in particular in EU/US), this in my view is a clear sign that b) is happening.
From my understanding SIC has so far mainly been used in Tesla and some more high end car models (Porsche Taycan?). As it broadens to a much bigger (in terms of volume) mass market, this should drive production capacity in the western world (outside China) to produce these chips.. thus Aixtron.

https://investor.onsemi.com/news-releases/...next-generation-electric

Regrds,
Fel  

Aixtron main competitor ASMi (within which LPE sits) reported Q2 results today with group orders +56% yoy organically driven largely by non SIC business, but still for SIC they call out

"Power/analog/wafer bookings were at a decent level despite generally slow market demand" and
"SiC Epi bookings were also at a relative strong level in Q2 2024"

https://www.asm.com/media/sfzdrkvi/2024_q2_investor-presentation.pdf

Very similar to the solid order intake Aixtron already pre-released in its profit warning.

Lets see what Aixtron reports in qualitative matters during the call on Thursday. I think the numbers itself will be a non-event, except for maybe more color on working capital plans and targets until year-end.

Regards,
Fel
 

In the ASMI CC, they talked about new 200mm SiC epi wins in China and outside of China with its newly released cluster tool. I wonder if Felix could address that.

Would having a manufacturing site in Italy make export license easier?

On the stock buyback, I hope questions be asked.

I am projecting Q3 sales of 177m.



 

does that mean Aixtron is losing Marketshare?  

I suppose most of you already heard it or read it but still here is a transcript of the CC
https://seekingalpha.com/article/...-q2-2024-earnings-call-transcript

I had the time for this only now.

I am not going to comment much on it since everything is in there.
Only one thought:
I am a bit sceptic about the new facility in Italy regarding the profitability. They say they expected very little impact. I. however, cannot imagine very little impact in running costs from a facility that doubles the existing manuf. capaciteis. How can that be?
The primary reason to buy it is to be able to handle peaks in the orders in short terms. I don't understand investing the money, be it also "not that much" and taking the running costs in wait for orders peaks. Then these orders should be in such a volume that the invest will pay off.
I am sure the management must have thought it over but I see this as a wild card and won't be too surprised if they will have to sell it in let's couple of years. In case these peaks do not materialize.
 

as far as i have understood the customers asked for it so i guess Aixtron had some talks with them as they wont run a site without knowing the outcome.

i hope they learned from Osram  

I always appreciate the insights and bluntness by OnSemi management team. Interesting comments on EVs, SIC and China. I absolutely recommend to listen

https://qcast.page.link/epe21N5nuUNChhbh6

Regards,
Fel  

Well pointed question rosskata, just my quick thoughts:

I think a lot of Government grants/Subsidies involved here

Your question on cost can be sliced in different ways. Of course there are additional costs given you need people, electricity etc etc. BUT. I think the facility might ensure additional revenue that was not available from the Aachen factory, for example (and that are just my thoughts) if ST Micro requires a production footprint in Italy from their supplier because ST itself received subsidies from the Italian state. If Aix had not had the footprint it would not be electable for an order.

Another scenario: yes, again, extra cost for running the facility but if you make a profit / margin from that facility, that’s fine, right?

So I think that was roughly what Grawert meant to say on the call.. he just not found the right wording. Or did not want to give too much away.

https://techfundingnews.com/...to-invest-nearly-e10b-in-chips-report/
 

Vielleicht für den eine oder anderen Wichtig


USA vergibt 1,6 Milliarden Dollar an Texas Instruments zum Bau von Halbleiterfabriken
Die Finanzierung stammt aus dem überparteilichen CHIPS Act, der die Produktion kritischer Halbleiter in den Vereinigten Staaten stärken soll.

BigEuro

 

SiC "pure play" Wolfspeed (shares down >70% YTD) is reporting quarterly figures after market close today. Seems that their Capex plans will be core focus of investores, not sure whether there will be any read-across for AIXA shares as a result:

"Capex and Funding Options Key Investor Focus. We believe Wolfspeed must further cut its 2025 capex plans of $1.5 billion to below $1 billion. This will provide much needed oxygen while allowing the company to focus on just building enough wafer capacity at Siler City to demonstrate the ramp and economics of Mohawk Valley."  

A 10 Years contract is good for WOLF and also potentialy good for Aixtron, opinions?
https://compoundsemiconductor.net/article/119635/...phorm_acquisition  

Martin Jungfleisch

I have two questions, please. First one, the silicon carbide order in the second quarter. Can you tell us how much will be delivered of that EUR105 million in 2024 and how much will be recorded in 2025? And then maybe if you can also comment how much of that order was coming out of China, please?

Felix Grawert

I don't have the data here. I have to do it out of my memory. So my message is a bit inaccurate, but qualitatively, I can give it to you. I would guess 25%, 30% gets shipped still in '24 from what I know, which customers are behind it. The rest goes into '25. Mostly, there is two existing customers behind of it and one new customer, which we got on board in the first quarter. In the first quarter, we announced the new customer is on board. Now in the second quarter, there was a very big volume order placed from that customer. So the majority goes into '25. And out of those orders, there was also a decent part coming out of China, I think there was multiple China customers amongst that. So yes, there was a certain China fraction but I'm not able to quantify how much of that it was.
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My guess is that Hunan Sanan is the major new Chinese customer, and other Chinese customers might include TYSIC (Tianyu).  They are all expanding 8" SiC epi wafers capacity aggressively.

I posted previously that Sanan, including Hunan San and Sanan-STM JV were hiring engineers with Aixtron experience.  From a new press release:

"...Sanan Optoelectronics' financial report also revealed the equipment procurement of Hunan Sanan's silicon carbide project - Sanan Optoelectronics' Hunan Sanan letter of credit guarantee is 150.19 million yuan, mainly used to purchase silicon carbide equipment from companies such as Aixtron, LPE, Asher, and KLA..."
 

CWL1, since you have  a thorough overview of Asian (and not only) Aix SiC market: do you observe a trend of capex reduction? I cannot imagine Woolfspeed is the only major player with such plans.
I start thinking that the estimation given my Aix management this year about the next year is no longer valid. I tend to believe that a guideline of +0 % growth will be good news...keeping in mind the state of EV market.
Your view on this is highly appreciated. thanks!  

expected to be max 20% if we assume same distribution as Q1 and Q2 for the while year.
Some drop in the next year in SiC orders could be compensated by the other segments. Effectively maybe only by GaN.  

There is adaption of 800V SiC platform in almost all the new EV's in China that requires more SiC.  Tesla's EV's are still 400V based.  However, we probably won't see the effect in short term.  

Do you think Aixtron is behind the Infineon 300mm GaN?
But i see Veeco offering a Tool/Machine for 300mm GaN but not Aixtron.  

Aix has stated they have 300 mm tool for evaluation at customers side. Very likely Infineon as well.

Here something to read: https://research-hub.de/companies/AIXTRON%2520SE
 

HAMBURG (dpa-AFX Analyser) - Die Privatbank Berenberg hat die Aktien des Chipindustrie-Ausrüsters Aixtron mit einem Kursziel von 30 Euro auf "Buy" belassen. Auf einer Berenberg-Konferenz mit deutschen Unternehmen habe Finanzvorstand Christian Danninger signalisiert, dass er im derzeit verhaltenen Markt für Leistungshalbleiter auf Siliziumkarbid-Basis Licht am Ende des Tunnels sehe, schrieb Analyst Gustav Froberg in seinem am Dienstag vorliegenden Kommentar.

Hoffentlich gibt es dazu positive Kommentare zu Q3 Zahlen.

 

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/...049.cms?from=mdr


The Invest is worth roughly 15 Billions USD (source:
https://www.electronicsforyou.biz/industry-buzz/...dias-electronics/)
Just wondering how much of that will go for production equipement. Hopefully mainly by Aix.

 

they explore different scenarios in terms of market evolvement here:
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/...e-silicon-carbide-wafer-market

Their bottom line:

The SiC industry is proactively addressing the new demand stemming from growth in EVs, even though uncertainty abounds about how it will evolve. No matter what scenario materializes, demand for SiC wafers will continue to grow and remain robust. Simultaneously, competition will intensify for technology, quality, and price leadership, with wafer suppliers continuing to make massive investments in improvements. Incumbents face competition from emerging companies and will benefit from ensuring that the shift to 200-mm technology delivers the expected cost advantages to maintain their technology leadership. Meanwhile, emerging suppliers must focus on iterative learning to close the technology leadership gap against incumbents. For all industry stakeholders, the next few years will be a challenging but exciting time to capture opportunities.  

Read-across for Aixtron..
https://seekingalpha.com/news/...ium=referral&feed_item_type=news