.In the opening years of the 21^st century semiconducting pure silicon (Si) chip launched the revolution of electronics and computerisation that has made life as it is now; since then Electronic Components and Systems (ECS) was always, and still is, an high-growth area, with a worldwide market growing faster than the industry average. As regards electrical performances, pure Silicon technology is near now to reach its physical limit and the ECS industrial race has so far been limited only to wafer size increasing (12” and over) where Asia and USA are winning by the most aggressive competition.

Anyway in this decade a new promising technology arose: Silicon Carbide (SiC). Compared with Si, SiC power devices have significantly lower on-resistance for the same breakdown voltage rating, meaning a reduction in losses, resulting in an increase in power conversion efficiency. The low source-drain capacitance of SiC switches result in much lower switching losses, enabling higher frequency operation, especially fast turn-off. This gives improved PFC (power factor correction) in switch-mode power supplies (SMPSs), allowing inductive components and snubber networks to be either reduced in size or eliminated.

This results in a reduction in overall system size and weight; as well as a reduced cost of these components, which should outweigh the extra cost of using SiC devices rather than Si ones.

Nowadays worldwide SiC production is still limited at 4 or 6 inches only and its state of the art availability is still limited to small-scale production because of several scientific/technical challenges.

In this scenario REACTION project will built the first worldwide and euRopEAn siC (Silicon Carbide) eighT Inches pilOt liNe facility for power technology. REACTION will re-set the European distances toward the Asian and American competitors, resetting worldwide factories competition at 8 inches wafer level only, cancelling the gap and making the new silicon carbide technology now industrially mature.

This will enable the European industry to set also the world reference of innovative and competitive solutions for critical societal challenges, like Energy saving and CO₂ reduction as well as sustainable environment through electric mobility and industrial power efficiency.

It will have a terrific potential impact on the semiconductors market, on the continental value-chain of system applications as well as on the European semiconductors manufacturing strength. This will include the IP assets gained during the build-up phase, with a positive fall-out on business and job hiring, differentiating from counterpart’s competition in Asia and USA.