en.Wedoany.com Reported - On May 6, 2026, the group standard T/CASAS 068—2026 "Isotropic Porous Graphite for Silicon Carbide Wafer Manufacturing," led by Saimaike Advanced Materials Co., Ltd. and following the standard-setting procedures of the China Advanced Semiconductor Industry Innovation Alliance (CASA) Standardization Committee, was officially released to the industry. This standard applies to isotropic porous graphite materials and their components used for silicon carbide single crystal growth and epitaxy, requiring a purity level of 5N5 (mass fraction 99.9995%) or higher. The document specifies technical requirements, test methods, inspection rules, marking, packaging, transportation, and storage. Previously, CASA had released T/CASAS 048—2025 "Isostatic Graphite for Silicon Carbide Single Crystal Growth" in 2025. The introduction of this new standard further completes the standardization puzzle for key graphite materials in silicon carbide manufacturing.
Porous graphite is an indispensable key basic material for silicon carbide semiconductor manufacturing. As a high-porosity carbon-based material, its core functions span two major stages: substrate single crystal growth and epitaxial processes. During substrate single crystal growth, porous graphite directly influences crystal quality by regulating the carbon-to-silicon atom ratio within the growth chamber, optimizing the temperature gradient distribution, and suppressing impurity diffusion, thereby supporting the production of larger-sized wafers. During crystal growth, silicon and carbon powder raw materials must sublimate into gas before recrystallization. Porous graphite, with its pore structure, diverts, mixes, channels, and controls the raw material gases, providing an additional carbon source, increasing the C/Si ratio in the growth zone, achieving controlled release in the required proportion, and ensuring the stability of material flow throughout the growth process. This effectively weakens the polycrystallization effect at the crystal edges, ensuring single polytype growth. Simultaneously, the thermal conduction properties of porous graphite help homogenize the temperature field in the powder zone, reduce reverse vapor transport and recrystallization on the powder surface, thereby improving the utilization rate of silicon carbide source materials and the crystal growth rate, optimizing the axial resistivity distribution, and making it particularly suitable for the preparation of large-size single crystals. By regulating pore types and combining with thermal field optimization, porous graphite can also inhibit crystal edge decomposition, promote diameter expansion, and improve overall growth stability.
In the epitaxial process, porous graphite also undertakes critical tasks. Using porous graphite in specific locations within the silicon carbide epitaxial furnace, leveraging its unique structure and thermal conductivity properties, can regulate the temperature field distribution within the epitaxial furnace chamber. This significantly improves the uniformity of the epitaxial layer's deposition thickness and doping concentration, and plays an important role in reducing wafer warpage or cracking caused by temperature non-uniformity.
Silicon carbide, as the core material of the third-generation wide bandgap semiconductors, is experiencing a demand surge in fields such as new energy vehicles, photovoltaic energy storage, and AI data center power supplies. As the most critical link in the industrial chain, the expansion of silicon carbide substrate production capacity directly drives the demand for high-quality porous graphite. China has established a complete silicon carbide material industry chain, with domestic enterprises achieving mass production capabilities from 6-inch to 8-inch wafers.
Saimaike Advanced Materials Co., Ltd., established in 2007, is headquartered in Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province, China, with a second production base in Yinchuan, Ningxia, covering a total area of approximately 1,000 mu. The company possesses green and environmentally friendly advanced production processes and is mainly engaged in the research, development, production, and sales of high-end specialty graphite materials and carbon-based composite materials. It is a national-level high-tech enterprise, a national-level specialized and sophisticated "Little Giant" enterprise, and its laboratory has been accredited by the China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment (CNAS). The company can produce large-size hot zone materials of 36 inches and above, with graphite impurity content less than 5ppm. Its products are widely used in industries such as semiconductors, photovoltaics, and nuclear power. Saimaike is the only member unit from China's graphite industry to join the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). By 2023, it had participated in the compilation of a total of 19 national standards, industry standards, ASTM standards, etc., and has established cooperative relationships with globally leading research institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, and the University of Oxford.
The main drafting units for this standard also include core industry chain enterprises and research institutions such as Beijing NAURA Microelectronics Equipment Co., Ltd., Hunan San'an Semiconductor Co., Ltd., Shandong Tianyue Advanced Technology Co., Ltd., Shanxi Shuoke Crystal Co., Ltd., Shandong University, and the Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is noteworthy that Shandong Tianyue Advanced Technology Co., Ltd. and Hunan San'an Semiconductor Co., Ltd. are leading enterprises in China's silicon carbide substrate manufacturing. Their participation ensures that the standard development process can directly align with the actual needs and verification data from the front lines of the industry.
In recent years, Saimaike has continuously intensified its efforts in the standardization of semiconductor graphite materials. On April 23, 2025, T/CASAS 048—2025 "Isostatic Graphite for Silicon Carbide Single Crystal Growth," led by Saimaike, was officially released, applicable to hot zone components for silicon carbide single crystal growth with a purity of 5N5 or higher. The release of T/CASAS 068—2026 extends the standard coverage from isostatic graphite to isotropic porous graphite, further refining the technical requirements for key materials in silicon carbide manufacturing. On April 3, 2026, the third working meeting of the Graphite Innovation Consortium, hosted by the Integrated Circuit Materials Industry Technology Innovation Alliance and organized by Saimaike, was held in Changxing, Huzhou. The meeting clarified that Saimaike would lead the consolidation of discussion outcomes, determine the consortium's next phase of key research directions, and promote the formation of an industrial model featuring upstream-downstream collaborative R&D, joint verification, and co-constructed standards, opening up the full industry chain collaboration link of "Materials - Equipment - Fab Manufacturing."
From the perspective of the current industry situation, porous graphite, as a core semiconductor consumable, has long been highly dependent on imports. Multiple researchers have pointed out that in the development process of silicon carbide devices, high-quality porous graphite materials have long been a bottleneck restricting the development of the domestic semiconductor graphite material industry. High-end porous graphite products for crystal growth mainly rely on foreign manufacturers, characterized by high prices and unstable supply chains, making domestic substitution an urgent necessity. The release of T/CASAS 068—2026 provides a unified quality evaluation benchmark for domestic silicon carbide substrate and epitaxy enterprises. It helps guide graphite material suppliers towards continuous iteration towards higher purity and better performance, strengthens technical alignment between upstream and downstream segments of the industry chain, and promotes the industrialization of domestic semiconductor graphite materials and the self-control of the supply chain. Saimaike is also a company indirectly invested in by A-share listed company Black Peony through Changzhou Jinrui Carbon Material Venture Capital Enterprise, and its progress is steadily advancing.
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