Mitsubishi Electric held a business briefing for its power devices business on November 9, 2021, and announced that it will invest 130 billion yen in its power semiconductor business over the next five years until 2025. Recently, Mitsubishi Electric has made two new moves:
• Signed a contract with ANSI Semiconductor to supply SiC MOSFET chips;
• Issuance of bonds: or will raise more than 5 billion yuan.

Signing: Establish strategic cooperation with Anshi Semiconductor

On November 13, Mitsubishi Electric Co., LTD. (TOKYO: 6503) announced that it will cooperate with Nexperia B.V. Establish a strategic partnership to jointly develop silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors for the power electronics market. Mitsubishi Electric will use its wide band gap semiconductor technology to develop and supply SiC MOSFET chips, and Nexperia will be used to develop SiC discrete devices.

Mark Roeloffzen, senior vice president and general manager of Nexperia’s Bipolar Discrete Business Unit, said: “This mutually beneficial strategic partnership with Mitsubishi Electric represents an important step in Nexperia’s silicon carbide journey. Mitsubishi Electric has a proven track record as a technologically proven silicon carbide device and module supplier. Combined with Nexperia’s high quality standards and expertise in discrete products and packaging, we are bound to generate positive synergies between the two companies, ultimately enabling our customers to deliver energy-efficient products in the industrial, automotive or consumer markets they serve.”

Masayoshi Takemi, Executive Officer and Group President of Mitsubishi Electric Semiconductors and Devices, said: “Nexperia is a leading company in the industrial sector with proven technologies for high-quality discrete semiconductors. We are excited to enter into this co-development partnership, which will leverage the semiconductor technologies of both companies.”

Financing: The issuance of bonds is planned to raise funds

On November 10, Mitsubishi Electric will issue its first green bond, and the funds raised will be used to build a SiC power semiconductor plant.

At present, Mitsubishi Electric has not disclosed the specific amount of green bond financing, but it is expected to raise about 5 billion yuan. Because in March this year, Mitsubishi Electric announced an investment of about 5.1 billion yuan to build a new 8-inch SiC wafer factory in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, mainly for the production of 8-inch SiC wafers.

In addition to November, Mitsubishi Electric also announced other silicon carbide actions in 2023:

Invest in Coherent and form SiC Corporation

On Oct. 10, Coherent, a U.S. supplier of automotive chip materials, said Japan’s Denso and Mitsubishi Electric would invest $1 billion in their silicon carbide business. Under the agreement, Denso and Mitsubishi Electric will each invest $500 million in Coherent’s Silicon Carbide unit in exchange for a non-controlling 12.5% stake in each unit.

Developed and supplied 200mm N-type 4H SiC substrate with Coherent

On May 26, Mitsubishi Electric announced on its website that the company and Coherent have signed a Memorandum of understanding (MOU) to cooperate on a program in which Coherent will develop and supply 200mm N-type 4H SiC substrates for Mitsubishi Electric’s future production of SiC power devices at the new facility.

It will spend nearly 100 billion yen to build an 8-inch SiC fab

On March 14, Mitsubishi Electric announced an increase in the production of energy-efficient silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors, revealing that the main part of the new investment: the amount of about 100 billion yen, for the construction of a new 8-inch SiC fab and strengthening related production facilities. Located in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, the new plant will produce large diameter 8-inch SiC wafers, introduce a clean room with state-of-the-art energy efficiency and a high level of automated production efficiency, and the new plant will be commissioned in April 2026.

MITSUBISHI Electric Co., LTD. : A Japanese manufacturing company founded on January 15, 1921, is one of the Mitsubishi Consortium and one of the top 500 companies in the world. The product range is wide, including display products for individual consumers, mobile phones, kitchen electrical, vehicle electrical, life electrical, air conditioning electrical. Electronics, power, social, transportation, space, information, electrical, machine, semiconductor and imaging for business consumers.

As of January 2022, Mitsubishi Electric has 24 joint ventures and wholly-owned enterprises in China, which are engaged in various businesses and actively transfer technology in the fields of electronic devices such as auto parts and semiconductors, as well as electric transmission and transformation equipment, elevators, motor products for railway vehicles, industrial automation equipment, household appliances and other electronic and machine fields.