Producer
Wolfspeed
World's largest SiC substrate and RF GaN wafer manufacturer. Controls 33.7% of SiC substrate market and 60% of world SiC materials capacity. Spun out of Cree, Inc. in 2021. Filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy June 2025 after EV demand slowdown and Chinese SiC competition drove a 30% wafer price drop; emerged September 2025 with $4.6B debt eliminated. Building "The Moat" — the world's largest SiC fab in Siler City, NC (2M+ sq ft).
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Goods downstream
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Stories
What they make
1 input Wolfspeed supplies
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Goods downstream
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Where they make it
2 facilities
Wolfspeed "The Moat" — Siler City, NC (John Palmour Manufacturing Center) →
USSiler City (Chatham County), North Carolina · sic_substrate_manufacturing
World's largest SiC manufacturing facility. 2M+ sq ft on 445-acre site. Designed for 10× the capacity of Wolfspeed's Durham fab. Production target June 2025 (entered at bankruptcy). If fully ramped, would produce the majority of global SiC substrates from a single US site. Major geopolitical asset for US semiconductor independence from Chinese SiC.
Wolfspeed Durham HQ & Fab →
USDurham, North Carolina · sic_substrate_manufacturing
Legacy SiC substrate and device manufacturing. Currently provides ~60% of world SiC materials. Will be supplemented and eventually partially replaced by Siler City as primary volume site.
What else they do
Business segments
The company's full revenue map — where this supply-chain role fits within their broader business.
SiC Substrates (World #1)
40%SiC Power Devices
35%GaN-on-SiC RF Devices
15%SiC Epitaxy
10%
Intelligence
What's known
Sourced claims about this company's role in supply chains — chokepoints, concentration, incidents, dual-use connections.
Did you know2023
Wolfspeed is publicly known as an EV supply chain company (SiC for electric vehicle inverters), but their GaN-on-SiC platform is simultaneously the primary substrate for US military AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) radar. F-35 APG-81 radar, Raytheon AN/TPY-2 missile defense radar, and US Navy SPY-6 Aegis radar all use GaN-on-SiC transmit/receive modules. The same Wolfspeed substrate that goes into a Tesla or Lucid EV motor controller also goes into the radar that tracks incoming ballistic missiles. Wolfspeed experienced severe financial distress in 2023-2024 (90%+ stock decline, failed fab ramp, debt restructuring discussions) — raising concerns that the primary domestic supplier of SiC substrates for US defense radar could face existential business risk. This is a rare case where a commercial supply chain failure could directly constrain US military radar modernization programs.
Wolfspeed ↗Incident2025
Wolfspeed Inc. (Durham NC; NYSE: WOLF) — the world's largest Silicon Carbide substrate manufacturer, a company that began as Cree Inc. in 1987 making LED lighting before pivoting to SiC power electronics — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on June 23, 2025. The bankruptcy was caused by a confluence of: (1) $1B+ capex spent on the Siler City NC 8-inch SiC wafer fab (the 'John Palmour Manufacturing Center,' named for Wolfspeed's founder) that was ramping slowly while burning cash; (2) collapsing SiC substrate spot prices driven by Chinese government-subsidized capacity from TanKeBlue, SICC, and others; (3) EV demand slowdown in 2024-2025 that reduced near-term SiC device demand; and (4) a $2.5B convertible note obligation that became unmanageable when the stock collapsed from $130 (2022 peak) to below $2. Wolfspeed is the first critical semiconductor substrate manufacturer to file for US bankruptcy protection. Its assets — including the only operational 8-inch SiC substrate manufacturing capacity in the world — are subject to acquisition in the bankruptcy process. National security advocates raised concerns about potential foreign acquisition of Wolfspeed's 8-inch SiC technology, given its relevance to EV, military power electronics, and RF (radar) applications. A company that spent 35 years building the world's most advanced SiC manufacturing technology may emerge from bankruptcy under non-US control.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ↗Origin2023
Wolfspeed (formerly Cree) was founded in 1987 as a spin-out from North Carolina State University, with initial funding from DARPA and US military research programs studying silicon carbide for high-temperature, high-power electronics. The founding researchers had been working on SiC crystal growth for years — SiC is exceptionally difficult to synthesize in semiconductor-grade quality because it requires temperatures above 2000C and tends to form polytypes (different crystal structures) spontaneously. The company pioneered commercial SiC crystal growth and initially sold SiC substrates for research. In the 1990s, Cree discovered that blue LEDs could be made on SiC substrates and began supplying the LED market — this LED business funded the SiC R&D that eventually led to power electronics. Cree's blue LEDs were in the lighting revolution of the 2000s. In 2021, Cree spun off the LED business (now CreeLED), renamed itself Wolfspeed, and pivoted entirely to SiC power electronics and GaN RF — betting that electric vehicles and 5G would drive SiC demand. The company that lit the world's first commercial blue LED is now making the power semiconductors for electric car motors.
Wolfspeed ↗