Bosch Wins $225 Million to Convert a California Fab to 200mm Silicon Carbide

Bosch has signed a definitive agreement with the US Department of Commerce CHIPS Program Office for up to $225 million in direct funding, supporting an investment of up to $2 billion to transform its Roseville, California plant for silicon carbide production and testing. The site will run 200mm wafers, is currently in sample production, and has commercial production scheduled to launch in 2026 — Bosch's first semiconductor production site in the United States.

Bosch also received a $25 million California Competes tax credit and has committed roughly $7.5 billion of investment across its US operations over the next five years. The Roseville fab was acquired from TSI Semiconductors in August 2023 and employs over 300 staff today, with output targeting automotive, industrial, energy and defence applications.

The wafer size is the technically interesting part. Silicon carbide has been produced predominantly on 150mm wafers, and moving to 200mm increases usable die per wafer substantially while improving edge yield — the economics that decide whether SiC competes with silicon IGBTs on price rather than only on performance. Several manufacturers are making that transition simultaneously, and the industry's cost curve for the next several years largely depends on how quickly they succeed.

For anyone specifying drives, converters or DC infrastructure, the practical effect is supply rather than specification. SiC devices have been available and expensive, with lead times and geographic concentration that made design teams hesitant to commit. A second high-volume 200mm source inside the United States shortens lead times and reduces exposure to a single region, which changes the risk calculation on designing a SiC part into a product with a ten-year service life.

The performance argument for SiC has not moved: higher switching frequency, smaller magnetics and filters, lower losses, and thermal behaviour that allows smaller heatsinks. What has been holding deployments back is availability and cost, and that is what capacity announcements address.