Bosch is planning to expand its Silicon Carbide (SiC) manufacturing capacity by 20 times over the next six years to meet surging market demand. The expansion will simultaneously support both automotive applications and the rapidly growing AI data center (AIDC) power markets, highlighting SiC's critical role in next-generation high-voltage power systems.
Overview: Bosch's Aggressive SiC Expansion Strategy
During the 6th Automotive Semiconductor Ecosystem Conference 2026, Wang Junyue, Bosch’s senior manager for power semiconductor products and global head of silicon carbide data center business, outlined a transformative roadmap for the company's silicon carbide (SiC) operations. Addressing the surging market demand for high-voltage power systems, Bosch announced plans to expand its global SiC manufacturing capacity by 20 times over the next six years. This aggressive expansion is strategically designed to advance both automotive electrification and the rapidly escalating power requirements of AI data centers (AIDC) in parallel.
Technical Details: The Trench Architecture Advantage
At the core of Bosch’s SiC strategy is a steadfast commitment to the trench architecture, a more complex but technically superior path compared to the industry's prevailing planar structures. Wang emphasized that while planar designs offer simplicity, the trench route delivers a significantly better Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and a more balanced cost-performance ratio. Per unit of area, trench chips can output higher currents, meaning less chip area is required for the same performance. Leveraging its deep technical accumulation in trench processes for IGBTs and MOSFETs dating back to its SiC R&D inception in 2002, Bosch integrates its unique trench expertise directly into the epitaxy stage, keeping both epitaxy and chip manufacturing strictly in-house.
Production Milestones: Automotive Main Drive Success
Bosch’s technical confidence is reflected in its market deployment. Unlike competitors that follow a gradual transition from industrial to automotive or auxiliary to main drives, Bosch targeted the most demanding application—automotive main drive inverters—from its very first SiC chip. Since achieving mass production for these inverters in 2021, the company has reached remarkable reliability metrics. Bosch has shipped approximately 80 million SiC chips with zero reported failures. Furthermore, cumulative module shipments for each generation have surpassed 14 million units, validating the robustness of their trench technology in extreme automotive environments.
Capacity Layout: 20x Expansion and Global Fab Footprint
To support this dual-market strategy, Bosch is significantly scaling its manufacturing footprint. The company currently operates two fully 8-inch SiC wafer fabs located in Germany and the United States, with the U.S. facility scheduled to commence mass production by the end of 2026. Looking ahead, the period from 2024 to 2030 will witness a 20-fold expansion in global SiC capacity. This massive scale-up is engineered to absorb the explosive demand from the AIDC sector while simultaneously fulfilling the rigorous volume requirements of global automotive OEMs.
Implications for AI Data Centers: The AIDC Power Revolution
Recognizing the massive power consumption of artificial intelligence infrastructure, Bosch officially launched its global AI data center business on July 1, 2026. Wang highlighted that AIDCs will consume a substantial portion of the newly expanded SiC capacity. The focal point of this transition is the solid-state transformer (SST), which represents the future direction for data center power management. Wang described the SST as "almost a complete SiC application solution", underscoring how deeply integrated wide-bandgap semiconductors will become in next-generation, high-efficiency power conversion systems for AI facilities.
Future Outlook: Generational Roadmap to 2031
Bosch’s product evolution roadmap ensures continuous performance gains alongside capacity expansion. The company is currently deploying its second-generation SiC chips. The third generation is slated for mass production in 2027, promising further enhancements in efficiency and power density. Looking further into the decade, Bosch has planned more advanced trench technology iterations for 2029 and 2031. This disciplined, long-term innovation cycle guarantees that Bosch will remain at the forefront of both automotive electrification and the critical power infrastructure required for the global AI boom.