Cree, Inc. (NASDAQ: CREE) develops ultraviolet (UV) and high power-packaged light emitting diode (LED) chips. The company also manufactures SiC and GaN materials and high-power products that use its internally developed SiC and GaN materials. The company holds 333 US patents as well as several other foreign patents.

Only a handful of companies use Silicon Carbide (SiC) and Gallium Nitride (GaN) materials. Traditionally, semiconductors are made out of silicon substrates, as it is relatively easy to grow single crystals from silicon. However, Silicon carbide (SiC) has superior optical, mechanical and thermal electronic properties in that it is a more electrically stable and heat resistant material, with a higher saturation drift velocity and partial transparency in visible light. Its sensitivity to acid, alkali and moisture levels is also very low. This makes a SiC device particularly suitable for applications in high-temperature, high-power, high-frequency power and high-stress environments, as for example, in the automobile, aerospace and oil & gas industries. Although these properties were discovered in the early 1990s, technological difficulties hindered the commercial viability of SiC for use in semiconductor chips. Therefore, it was not until the late 1990s that the first SiC device became commercially available.

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