Farewell to LED, Cree will be renamed wolfspeed

Cree recently announced that the company is expected to officially change its name to wolfspeed by the end of 2021.
Cree said, "our team's commitment to innovation and beyond possible limits will remain unchanged. As the global leader of SiC industry, we are ready to realize groundbreaking, high efficiency and energy-saving changes in the future
As a leading enterprise in the field of silicon carbide (SIC), Cree wolfspeed's product portfolio includes silicon carbide (SIC) materials, power devices and RF devices, which are widely used in electric vehicles, fast charging, inverters, power supply, telecommunications, military, aerospace and other fields.
As early as September 2015, Cree split its power & RF division into an independent company, wolfspeed.
In 2019, Cree also announced that it will invest $1 billion to expand its SiC production and build the world's largest SiC manufacturing plant in New York State, so as to enhance its capacity for wolfspeed's silicon carbide (SIC) and gallium nitride (GAN) businesses.
In order to further tilt its business focus to the field of compound semiconductors, Cree began to sell LED related businesses in recent two years.
Cree was founded in 1987 and landed on NASDAQ in 1993. Cree is a world famous manufacturer and industry leader in LED epitaxy, chips, packaging, LED lighting solutions, compound semiconductor materials, power devices and RF.
On March 15, 2019, Cree announced that Cree lighting will sell its LED lighting division to American ideal industries for us $310 million. The business to be sold includes commercial LED lighting and enterprise lighting solutions.
Through this divestiture, Cree continues to focus on compound semiconductor RF and power applications to meet the market demand of 5g communications and new energy vehicles.
It's not hard to understand Cree's move. First of all, LED lighting is no longer a high-tech threshold industry, it has changed from the highland of technical competition to a mature general commodity; second, LED manufacturing is gradually developing in the direction of standardization and generalization, the added value of products is lower, and Cree has no advantage.
After announcing the sale of lighting business, Cree announced the sale of LED products business. On October 19, 2020, Cree and smart reached a final agreement to sell the LED product division to smart at a transaction price of US $300 million (about RMB 2 billion).
It is understood that Cree LED product portfolio mainly includes blue and green LED chips, high brightness LED, etc., and application scenarios cover indoor and outdoor lighting, video display, transportation and professional lighting, etc.
According to financial data, in fiscal year 2020, Cree LED products achieved sales revenue of 433.2 million US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 20%.
Cree said that the transaction further clarified the company's strategic positioning, Cree will lead the industrial transformation from silicon to silicon carbide, and further enhance the company's financial position.
To some extent, Cree's determination to transform into a semiconductor can be seen by selling its lighting business and led product business. Now, Cree will officially change its name to wolfspeed, which further confirms its determination to make SiC business bigger and stronger.