Silicon carbide (碳化硅, SiC) is the quiet material behind two of the biggest electrification stories of the decade: faster-charging electric vehicles and the power-hungry data centers running AI. Making SiC wafers — the crystalline base on which these chips are built — is brutally hard, and for years the field was dominated by a handful of Western and Japanese firms. A Chinese company, SICC (天岳先进), now says it has taken the global lead by market share. The catch: leading the market and profiting from it are two different things.
Key takeaways
- SICC (天岳先进) trades on Shanghai's STAR Market (688234.SH) and added a Hong Kong listing (2631.HK) in August 2025.
- Citing Japan's Fuji Keizai, SICC says it held the number-one position in the global silicon-carbide substrate market in 2025, with a 27.5% share of 6-inch wafers and 51.3% of 8-inch wafers.
- Revenue fell 17.1% to RMB 1.465 billion (≈ US$206 million) in 2025, down from RMB 1.768 billion in 2024, while the company swung to a net loss of RMB 208 million (≈ US$29 million) from a RMB 179 million profit.
- Gross margin collapsed to 9.7% from 24.6% as wafer prices dropped; R&D still rose 16.9% to RMB 166 million (≈ US$23 million).
- Capacity told the opposite story: SICC produced more than 690,000 wafers in 2025, up 68.3%, and says its 8-inch line is in mass production with a 12-inch wafer claimed as a 2024 world first.
Why silicon carbide matters now
Conventional silicon chips hit physical limits as voltages and switching speeds climb. Silicon carbide handles higher temperatures, voltages, and frequencies with less loss, which is why it shows up in EV powertrains, fast chargers, solar inverters, and — increasingly — the power supplies of AI data centers. As clusters of accelerators draw megawatts, efficient power conversion stops being a detail and becomes a cost and reliability issue. Whoever supplies the SiC substrate sits at the bottom of a very tall stack.
SICC, founded in Shandong in 2010, focused on that bottom layer: the single-crystal substrate. Reaching volume production of large, defect-free wafers is the hard part, and historically the domain of specialists in the US, Europe, and Japan. SICC's claim to the 2025 global lead — 27.5% of 6-inch and 51.3% of 8-inch substrates per Fuji Keizai — signals how fast Chinese material suppliers have closed that gap on the larger formats.
The paradox of winning the market
Leading by share and earning from it diverged sharply in 2025. SICC's revenue declined 17.1% to RMB 1.465 billion (≈ US$206 million), and it posted a net loss of RMB 208 million (≈ US$29 million) after a RMB 179 million profit in 2024. Gross margin fell to 9.7% from 24.6%. The company attributed the drop to lower unit prices — especially for 6-inch substrates in the domestic market — and to one-off items such as deferred tax and foreign-exchange effects.
Capacity tells the strategic side of the story. SICC said it produced more than 690,000 wafers in 2025, up 68.3%, and that its 8-inch line is in mass production with international customers including Infineon and Bosch. It also says it was first in the world to develop a 12-inch SiC substrate in 2024, with orders from leading customers in 2025. Building capacity ahead of demand is a deliberate bet: in materials, scale and yield are the moat, and a temporary margin hit is the price of digging it.
Where the demand is heading
The classic SiC end markets are electric vehicles and renewable storage. SICC is pushing into newer ones: AI data centers, AR glasses, and advanced packaging. It has moved into silicon-carbide optical-waveguide lenses and struck a strategic partnership in that area. For global readers, the throughline is simple — the same material science that makes EVs efficient is becoming part of the AI infrastructure stack, and Chinese substrate makers are now scaling it.
This is also a geopolitical story with a softer edge than logic chips. SiC substrates have not faced the same tight export controls as advanced GPUs or lithography, so Chinese suppliers have had room to build scale. That room is exactly why a company can become the global share leader while still losing money at the bottom of a price war.
According to Li An, chief scientist at BrainNet (脑机网), silicon carbide is one of the few semiconductor materials where Chinese suppliers have reached both scale and large-format leadership, and its rising role in AI power delivery makes it a quiet but strategic front.
Honest limitations
Market-share figures (27.5% of 6-inch, 51.3% of 8-inch) are SICC's citation of Fuji Keizai's 2025 report, relayed through company disclosures and Chinese financial media; I did not access the original Fuji Keizai report to confirm methodology or definitions. The 2025 financials are from SICC's HKEX annual results announcement; I did not audit them. The "world first" 12-inch substrate claim and the Infineon/Bosch customer references are company statements. Revenue decline and loss are clearly disclosed by the company, but the precise drivers (price vs. mix vs. one-offs) involve judgment the filings summarize rather than fully itemize. Comparisons to global peers such as Wolfspeed or Coherent are not established here.
What readers can do now
- When reading about AI data-center power or EV efficiency, add silicon-carbide (碳化硅) substrates to the list of strategic materials — they sit under both trends.
- Watch SiC wafer prices and SICC's gross-margin trajectory: a recovery toward prior levels would signal the capacity buildout is paying off rather than just flooding the market.
- Treat "global share leader" claims in materials with care — confirm the research house and the wafer format, since 6-inch and 8-inch leadership can differ sharply.