II-VI, a Saxonsburg-based engineered materials and optoelectronic components company, is expanding its regional headquarters in China to meet demand for materials to power electric cars and clean energy applications.
The company announced plans Thursday to add more than 50,000 square feet of new cleanroom space in its Fuzhou, China, location. The new space will accommodate a back-end processing line for manufacturing of silicon carbide, a type of semiconductor that is used for electric vehicles and solar and wind energy generation.
Compared to electronics based on silicon, another type of semiconductor, the silicon carbide material can increase the driving range of an electric vehicle by about 10% on a single charge, II-VI said in a news release Thursday.
“China is expected to continue to be the world’s largest electric car market,” said Sohail Khan, executive vice president for the division of II-VI that oversees its electronics technologies business. “These investments will be supported by our global sales force and a SiC platform built by our innovations of the last 20 years. ... We are excited about our prospects to lead in one of the most promising markets of our generation.”
To address the accelerating market for electric cars and clean energy, II-VI also plans to increase its global production capacity for the same materials in its United States operations in the next five to 10 years.
In addition to electric vehicles and clean energy, II-VI has worked on products for aerospace and defense, life sciences, consumer electronics, automotive markets and other semiconductor equipment.
Lauren Rosenblatt: lrosenblatt@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1565.
First Published: April 16, 2021, 3:51 p.m.