Cree Inc.'s newly opened 230,000 square-foot engineering and production facility in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, is now operational. The facility is producing the company's advanced electronic devices based on silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) technologies. De-vices produced at the new Cree site include high-efficiency SiC power components for power supplies and motor drives as well as SiC and GaN wide bandgap RF devices for Department of Defense and WiMAX applications. In addition, it will serve as SiC and GaN MMIC foundry services for defense and general-purpose applications. While the present production is in three-inch wafers, the plan is to move to four-inch lines.

CEO Chuck Swoboda said, “We are excited to announce the opening of this new RTP site. The advanced power components being developed and produced here are important elements of our business strategy. Moreover, they represent Cree's continued commitment to delivering efficient technologies needed to better serve the world's growing energy demand.”

“The new Cree site houses one of the first commercial SiC and GaN production facilities in the world devoted to serving the power and wireless infrastructure markets,” said John Palmour, Cree executive vice president for advanced devices. “SiC and GaN-based technologies enhance the performance of traditional power supply, motor drive and wireless communications systems by enabling the design of devices which provide significantly higher efficiencies than are available with similar silicon devices today.

According to Strategies Unlimited Inc., the GaN-based device market is expected to grow from $3.3 to $3.4 billion in 2005 to $7.2 billion by 2009.

For more information, visit www.cree.com.