[News] Coherent Samples 300 mm SiC Substrates for Next-Gen AI Cooling

On August 17, Coherent, a global leader in optical communications and advanced materials, announced that it has begun sampling 300mm high-thermal-conductivity silicon carbide (SiC) substrates to key semiconductor partners in the artificial intelligence sector. The milestone signals the transition of its scalable materials platform from internal R&D to active customer validation.

As modern AI processors demand unprecedented power densities, thermal management has surfaced as the primary bottleneck limiting system performance, hardware reliability, and overall data center power usage effectiveness (PUE).

Engineered specifically to address these thermal thresholds, Coherent’s 300 mm SiC substrates offer superior thermal conductivity, mechanical strength, and thermal stability for next-generation heat spreaders and advanced packaging architectures.

According to company specifications, the new SiC solution achieves an approximate 25% improvement in thermal performance over current market offerings while remaining fully compatible with standard semiconductor fabrication processes.

“AI performance is increasingly constrained by the industry’s ability to extract heat from processors,” said Craig Mullaney, Senior Vice President and General Manager at Coherent. “Advanced SiC thermal management materials play a crucial role here. By pairing decades of SiC expertise with a scalable 300 mm manufacturing platform, Coherent is building the materials foundation for future AI infrastructure.”

Coherent maintains a vertically integrated footprint across the entire SiC value chain—encompassing crystal growth, wafer shaping, polishing, and characterization. This end-to-end control provides a predictable supply chain architecture as customer validation transitions to high-volume manufacturing.

(Photo credit: Coherent)