STARKVILLE, Mississippi, October 7, 2003 - The two companies are combining 4H-silicon carbide (SiC) substrate production capabilities at II-VI with an advanced SiC epitaxial material growth technology developed using SiC epitaxy reactors at SemiSouth.  The technology is for use in for use in ultra-high power density electronics, next generation radars, wireless and satellite communications systems.

The II-VI/SemiSouth team will begin sampling 2-inch diameter SiC epitaxy wafers with epitaxy structures up to 20 um thick, with a wide range (5e15 to 1e19 cm-3) of n and p-type doping available to meet customer needs.

These epitaxial wafers are designed for fabrication of ultra-high power transistors and rectifiers, which are key building blocks for DC-DC converters, high-power density and high-frequency power electronics, and high-frequency radar transmitters.

"We believe that close collaboration with SemiSouth has enabled both companies to make rapid progress in technology development and will ultimately lead to a lower cost of manufacturing", says Thomas Anderson, general manager of the Wide Band Gap Materials Group at II-VI.  "We obtain valuable feedback from the epitaxial material growth and device work provided by SemiSouth to help us rapidly improve the material quality of our SiC substrates and tailor the substrate to meet specific requirements of SemiSouth’s epitaxial process."

"The II-VI / SemiSouth team has made significant progress in developing this new epitaxial wafer technology", remarked Jeff Casady, president and CTO of SemiSouth. "This joint development program is helping us develop our merchant epitaxy business, as well as speed up epitaxy technology development.  Because of the relatively high cost and early stage of both the SiC wafer and epitaxy technologies, this joint effort will greatly boost both of our products and lead to lower costs and faster market growth for the SiC electronics industry."

The development of this technology is strongly supported by the U.S. Government.  Since July 2000, SemiSouth and II-VI, Inc. have received numerous major programs from AFRL, Title III, MDA, Navy EOC and ONR with a combined total of more than $10 million which have been focused on technology development, process improvement and process scale-up.

Wide Bandgap Materials Group of II-VI Incorporated has the strategic goal to become a leading volume supplier of affordable, high-performance wide bandgap semiconductor materials. This group currently manufactures and markets single crystal SiC substrates for use in the solid-state lighting, wireless infrastructure, RF electronics and power switching industries. The Wide Bandgap Materials Group has two facilities located in Pine Brook, NJ and Saxonburg, PA, respectively.