An interesting variety of SiC epitaxial growth methodologies, ranging from liquid-phase epitaxy, molecular beam epitaxy, and chemical vapor deposition(CVD) have been investigated . The CVD growth technique is generally accepted as the most promising method for attaining epilayer reproducibility, quality, and throughputs required for mass production. In the simplest terms, variations of SiC CVD are carried out by heating SiC substrates in a chamber “reactor” with flowing silicon- and carbon-containing gases that decompose and deposit Si and C onto the wafer allowing an epilayer to grow in a well-ordered single-crystal fashion under well-controlled conditions. Conventional SiC CVD epitaxial growth processes are carried out at substrate growth temperatures between 1400°C and 1600°C at pressures from 0.1 to 1 atm resulting in growth rates of the order of a few micrometers per hour . Higher temperature (up to 2000°C) SiC CVD growth processes, some using halide-based growth chemistries, are also being pioneered to obtain higher SiC epilayer growth rates of the order of hundreds of micrometers per hour that appear sufficient for growth of bulk SiC boules in addition to very thick epitaxial layers needed for high-voltage devices .

Despite the fact that SiC growth temperatures significantly exceed epitaxial growth temperatures used for most other semiconductors, a variety of SiC CVD epitaxial growth reactor configurations have been developed and commercialized . For example, some reactors employ horizontal reactant gas flow across the SiC wafer, while others rely on vertical flow of reactant gases; some reactors have wafers surrounded by heated “hot-wall” or “warm-wall” configurations, while other “cold-wall” reactors heat only a susceptor residing directly beneath the SiC wafer. Most reactors used for commercial production of SiC electronics rotate the sample to ensure high uniformity of epilayer parameters across the wafer. SiC CVD systems capable of simultaneously growing epilayers on multiple wafers have enabled higher wafer throughput for SiC electronic device manufacture.