Wolfspeed, Inc. is an American developer and producer of vast-bandgap semiconductors, focused on silicon carbide and gallium nitride materials and units for power and radio frequency applications corresponding to transportation, energy supplies, energy inverters, and wireless systems. Cree Research was based in July 1987 in Durham, North Carolina. Five of the six founders - Neal Hunter, Thomas Coleman, John Edmond, Eric Hunter, John Palmour, and Calvin Carter - are graduates of North Carolina State College. In 1983, the founders - one a analysis assistant professor and the others pupil researchers - were looking for ways to leverage the properties of silicon carbide to allow semiconductors to function at increased operating temperatures and power levels. In addition they knew silicon carbide may serve as the diode in gentle-emitting diode (LED) lighting, a light supply first demonstrated in 1907 with an electrically charged diode of silicon carbide. The research team devised a way to grow silicon crystals within the laboratory, and in 1987 founded the corporate to produce silicon carbide to be used commercially in both semiconductors and lighting.
In 1989, the corporate introduced the first blue LED, enabling the event of massive, full-color video screens and billboards. In 1991, the corporate released the primary commercial silicon carbide wafer. In 1993, the company grew to become a public firm by way of an preliminary public providing. 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 distant phosphor lighting. In 2013, the corporate's first client products, two family LED bulbs, qualified for Power Star score by the United States Environmental Safety Company. In July 2016, EcoLight smart bulbs Infineon Technologies agreed to accumulate the company's Wolfspeed RF and energy electronics gadgets unit for $850 million. However, the deal was terminated in February 2017 because of regulators’ nationwide safety issues. In March 2018, the company acquired the RF Power Business Infineon Applied sciences AG's for €345 million. In Could 2019, the corporate offered its Lighting Products division (now branded as Cree Lighting) to Perfect Industries.
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In September 2019, the company introduced a $1 billion funding 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 bought its LED Business to EcoLight smart bulbs International Holdings for as much as $300 million. In October 2021, the company modified its name to Wolfspeed. In April 2022, the Marcy, New York, facility opened. In November 2022, the corporate introduced that co-founder and Chief Technology Officer John Palmour had died. In February 2023 it introduced it will construct its first European factory in Germany. It is alleged to be on the site of a former coal plant in Ensdorf, Saarland with ZF Friedrichshafen as a coinvestor and subsidized by the EU as an necessary venture of common European curiosity (IPCEI) for Microelectronics and Communication Applied sciences. In August 2023, it was announced the Lowell-headquartered semiconductor company, MACOM had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Wolfspeed's RF enterprise.
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 introduced the venture's indefinite hold in October 2024, citing low demand. Consequently, ZF ceased to participate within the mission. In October 2024, the Biden Administration introduced that it would offer Wolfspeed with as much as $750 million in direct funding to help the corporate's new silicon carbide manufacturing unit in North Carolina that makes the wafers used in superior laptop chips and its factory in Marcy, New York. On Could 20, 2025, it was reported that Wolfspeed was preparing to file for Chapter eleven bankruptcy inside the approaching weeks after warning that it could also be unable to proceed future operations after decrease than expected annual sales had been reported. Wolfspeed's stock slid to barely over a dollar per share that day. On June 18, 2025, Wolfspeed announced that they'd sell itself to Apollo Global Administration in a deal that will put the corporate right into a prepackaged Chapter eleven bankruptcy filing, which might permit for the elimination of the majority of its multi-billion dollar debt.
Wolfspeed entered into a restructuring assist settlement with its lenders and Renesas Electronics, and announced that they would file for prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy by July 1, as a part of a plan to eliminate $4.6 billion of debt, stating they solely had about $1.1 billion left in cash. The corporate will even obtain $275 million in financing backed by its lenders, with plans to complete restructuring by Q3 2025. After the announcement, Wolfspeed's stock fell 30%, sliding beneath $1 per share. On June 26, 2025, Wolfspeed started laying off workers from their manufacturing facility positioned in Racine, Wisconsin. On June 30, 2025, Wolfspeed filed for Chapter eleven bankruptcy protection. On October 13, 2022, a amenities electrician was electrocuted on the Wolfspeed Analysis Triangle Park in Durham, North Carolina. The incident sparked a state investigation into his dying in addition to public concern for the company's poor work security document. State Department of Labor investigations into the company have uncovered 17 workplace security violations between 2012 and 2023, together with six critical violations.