DURHAM – Who better to explain the changing of Cree – a name applied to a semiconductor and LED venture dating back to 1987 – to Wolfspeed than Cree CEO Gregg Lowe?
In a conference call with analysts Wednesday night, Lowe made headlines immediately with the name change pronouncement. He’s rebooting the company away from LED and focusing on semiconductors as well as the products coming from Cree’s Wolfspeed – another name traced to N.C. State University (Wolfpack) and its roots where key founders went to school.
“The momentum we’re seeing in silicon carbide reinforces our competence and our growth strategy as we execute on our long-term plan. In addition, we are making solid progress on the divestiture of our LED assets and expect the closest transaction during our fiscal third quarter.
Cree’s CEO is changing company’s long-time name to Wolfspeed
“Once the divestiture of Cree’s LED is complete, we will have achieved a major milestone in our transformational journey to establish our company as a pure play global semiconductor powerhouse, well positioned to lead the industry transition from silicon to silicon carbide. Now to further amplify this transition, we are changing the name of our company to Wolfspeed. We believe this is a natural progression that builds on our strong reputation of developing silicon carbide solutions over the last 30 years while at the same time, capitalizing on the competitive positioning that the Wolfspeed brand has in the market …”
“We have more to share on these efforts over the next several months and expect the name change to be complete sometime in the next few quarters. …
The Wolfspeed promise
“We are pleased with our results for this quarter, which demonstrate the strength of our business and reinforces our confidence in our strategic priorities. Customers continue to give us feedback that the interest in and demand for silicon carbide continues to grow. The strength of our device opportunity pipeline, which currently stands at more than $10 billion, underscores the demand we’re seeing, not only for automotive power, but also in RF, industrial and Energy Solutions.
“The cadence at which our sales team is converting these opportunities continues to be impressive, with approximately $600 million of design-ins awarded during the previous quarter. A significant portion of these were for automotive products and the rest spread across industrial, communications, infrastructure, energy and aerospace and defense. Further, our engineering team is constantly innovating to bring new products to market …
“Earlier this month, we announced the launch of the Wolfspeed Wolfpack family of power modules, which supports a wide range of solutions for power markets, including EV task charging, renewable energy and energy storage and industrial power applications. This 1,200 Volt Wolfspeed MOSFET module technology delivers maximum efficiency in packages that allow customers to significantly increase efficiency and performance with smaller, more scalable power systems. …
“While the automotive industry continues to anchor our business, merits of silicon carbide are being recognized across other industries, and we are well prepared to serve the different needs and applications of these businesses. In materials, we are pleased to announce that we signed an extension and expansion of an existing long-term wafer supply agreement with a major semiconductor provider during this past quarter. … The extension is yet another example of how the industry at large is shifting towards silicon carbide and how we are best positioned to lead this transition.”
Cree – soon to be Wolfspeed – revenue tops expectations, loss is not as bad as forecast
