(Image: https://focastock.imgix.net/photos/P1220175.jpg?quality=70&auto=format&width=400)Wolfspeed, Inc. is an American developer and manufacturer of extensive-bandgap semiconductors, centered on silicon carbide and gallium nitride supplies and devices for energy and radio frequency functions such as transportation, energy provides, power inverters, and wireless programs. Cree Research was based in July 1987 in Durham, North Carolina. 5 of the six founders - Neal Hunter, Thomas Coleman, John Edmond, Eric Hunter, John Palmour, and Calvin Carter - are graduates of North Carolina State University. In 1983, the founders - one a analysis assistant professor and the others scholar researchers - had been searching for methods to leverage the properties of silicon carbide to allow semiconductors to function at larger working temperatures and energy ranges. Additionally they knew silicon carbide might serve because the diode in gentle-emitting diode (LED) lighting, a light source first demonstrated in 1907 with an electrically charged diode of silicon carbide. The analysis crew devised a strategy to grow silicon crystals within the laboratory, EcoLight and in 1987 founded the corporate to supply silicon carbide for use commercially in each semiconductors and lighting.

In 1989, the company launched the primary blue LED, enabling the development of giant, full-shade video screens and billboards. In 1991, the corporate released the primary business silicon carbide wafer. In 1993, the company turned a public company through an preliminary public offering. In 2011, the company acquired Ruud Lighting for $525 million. In August 2011, the company announced the XLamp XT-E Royal Blue LED to be used in remote phosphor lighting. In 2013, the company's first consumer merchandise, two household LED bulbs, certified for Power Star score by the United States Environmental Safety Agency. In July 2016, Infineon Applied sciences agreed to amass the corporate's Wolfspeed RF and power electronics units unit for $850 million. Nevertheless, the deal was terminated in February 2017 as a consequence of regulators’ national safety issues. In March 2018, the corporate acquired the RF Power Business Infineon Technologies AG's for €345 million. In May 2019, the company sold its Lighting Merchandise division (now branded as Cree Lighting) to Superb Industries. external site

In September 2019, the company introduced a $1 billion investment in a semiconductor manufacturing plant in Marcy, New York to build the world’s largest silicon carbide fabrication facility with a $500 million grant from New York State. In March 2021, the company sold its LED Enterprise to Smart Global Holdings for EcoLight as much as $300 million. In October 2021, the corporate modified its name to Wolfspeed. In April 2022, the Marcy, New York, facility opened. In November 2022, the corporate announced that co-founder and Chief Technology Officer John Palmour had died. In February 2023 it introduced it will construct its first European manufacturing facility in Germany. It is imagined to be on the positioning of a former coal plant in Ensdorf, Saarland with ZF Friedrichshafen as a coinvestor and subsidized by the EU as an important undertaking of frequent European curiosity (IPCEI) for Microelectronics and Communication Technologies. In August 2023, it was announced the Lowell-headquartered semiconductor firm, MACOM had entered into a definitive agreement to accumulate Wolfspeed's RF enterprise.

(Image: https://freepixels.com/wp-content/uploads/Nature/Landscape/030808a6863-field-haystack.jpg)In June 2024, Wolfspeed has delayed its $3 billion semiconductor plant in Germany to mid-2025, reflecting the EU's challenges in boosting local chip production. Wolfspeed announced the mission's indefinite hold in October 2024, citing low demand. As a result, ZF ceased to take part within the project. In October 2024, the Biden Administration introduced that it would offer Wolfspeed with up to $750 million in direct funding to assist the corporate's new silicon carbide factory in North Carolina that makes the wafers used in advanced computer chips and its manufacturing unit in Marcy, New York. On Might 20, 2025, it was reported that Wolfspeed was preparing to file for Chapter eleven bankruptcy inside the coming weeks after warning that it could also be unable to continue future operations after lower than anticipated annual gross sales were reported. Wolfspeed's inventory slid to barely over a greenback per share that day. On June 18, 2025, Wolfspeed introduced that they'd sell itself to Apollo World Administration in a deal that may put the company into a prepackaged Chapter eleven bankruptcy filing, which would enable for the elimination of the vast majority of its multi-billion dollar debt.

Wolfspeed entered into a restructuring assist settlement with its lenders and Renesas Electronics, and announced that they might file for prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy by July 1, as part of a plan to get rid of $4.6 billion of debt, stating they solely had about $1.1 billion left in money. The corporate will also receive $275 million in financing backed by its lenders, with plans to finish restructuring by Q3 2025. After the announcement, Wolfspeed's stock fell 30%, sliding beneath $1 per share. On June 26, 2025, Wolfspeed began laying off staff from their manufacturing facility situated in Racine, Wisconsin. On June 30, 2025, EcoLight Wolfspeed filed for Chapter eleven bankruptcy safety. On October 13, 2022, a services electrician was electrocuted at the Wolfspeed Research Triangle Park in Durham, North Carolina. The incident sparked a state investigation into his loss of life as well as public concern for the corporate's poor work safety file. State Division of Labor investigations into the corporate have uncovered 17 office safety violations between 2012 and EcoLight 2023, together with six severe violations.