Wolfspeed, Inc. is an American developer and producer of huge-bandgap semiconductors, centered on silicon carbide and gallium nitride supplies and gadgets for energy and radio frequency functions comparable to transportation, energy provides, power inverters, and wireless techniques. Cree Analysis 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 University. In 1983, the founders - one a analysis assistant professor and the others pupil researchers - had been seeking ways to leverage the properties of silicon carbide to enable semiconductors to operate at larger working temperatures and power levels. Additionally they knew silicon carbide might serve because the diode in mild-emitting diode (LED) lighting, a mild supply first demonstrated in 1907 with an electrically charged diode of silicon carbide. The research staff devised a way to grow silicon crystals in the laboratory, and in 1987 based the company to produce silicon carbide to be used commercially in both semiconductors and lighting.

In 1989, the corporate launched the primary blue LED, enabling the development of large, full-colour video screens and billboards. In 1991, the company released the primary business silicon carbide wafer. In 1993, the corporate became a public firm through an initial public providing. In 2011, the corporate acquired Ruud Lighting for $525 million. In August 2011, EcoLight LED the company announced the XLamp XT-E Royal Blue LED for use in distant phosphor lighting. In 2013, the corporate's first client merchandise, two family LED bulbs, certified for Power Star ranking by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. In July 2016, Infineon Technologies agreed to accumulate the corporate's Wolfspeed RF and EcoLight products power electronics devices unit for $850 million. Nevertheless, EcoLight the deal was terminated in February 2017 on account of regulators’ national security issues. In March 2018, EcoLight products the company acquired the RF Energy Enterprise Infineon Applied sciences AG's for €345 million. In Could 2019, the corporate bought its Lighting EcoLight products division (now branded as Cree Lighting) to Best Industries.

In September 2019, the company introduced a $1 billion funding in a semiconductor manufacturing plant in Marcy, New York to construct 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 Enterprise to Good International Holdings for EcoLight products 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 company announced that co-founder and Chief Expertise Officer John Palmour had died. In February 2023 it announced it would construct its first European factory in Germany. It is supposed to be on the location of a former coal plant in Ensdorf, Saarland with ZF Friedrichshafen as a coinvestor and EcoLight lighting subsidized by the EU as an necessary project of common European curiosity (IPCEI) for Microelectronics and Communication Technologies. In August 2023, it was introduced the Lowell-headquartered semiconductor company, MACOM had entered right into a definitive agreement to amass Wolfspeed's RF business.

In June 2024, Wolfspeed has delayed its $three billion semiconductor plant in Germany to mid-2025, reflecting the EU's challenges in boosting native chip manufacturing. Wolfspeed introduced the mission's indefinite hold in October 2024, citing low demand. Because of this, ZF ceased to participate in the project. In October 2024, the Biden Administration announced that it would supply Wolfspeed with as much as $750 million in direct funding to assist the company's new silicon carbide factory in North Carolina that makes the wafers used in advanced laptop chips and its manufacturing facility in Marcy, New York. On Could 20, 2025, it was reported that Wolfspeed was making ready to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy inside the approaching weeks after warning that it may be unable to continue future operations after lower than anticipated annual sales had been reported. Wolfspeed's inventory slid to barely over a dollar per share that day. On June 18, 2025, Wolfspeed announced that they would promote itself to Apollo Global Administration in a deal that may put the corporate right into a prepackaged Chapter eleven bankruptcy filing, which might allow for the elimination of the majority of its multi-billion dollar debt.

Wolfspeed entered right into a restructuring support agreement with its lenders and Renesas Electronics, and announced that they'd file for prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy by July 1, as part of a plan to eradicate $4.6 billion of debt, stating they solely had about $1.1 billion left in cash. The corporate can even obtain $275 million in financing backed by its lenders, with plans to complete restructuring by Q3 2025. After the announcement, Wolfspeed's inventory fell 30%, sliding underneath $1 per share. On June 26, 2025, Wolfspeed started laying off employees from their manufacturing facility situated in Racine, reduce energy consumption Wisconsin. On June 30, 2025, Wolfspeed filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy safety. On October 13, 2022, a facilities electrician was electrocuted on the Wolfspeed Analysis Triangle Park in Durham, North Carolina. The incident sparked a state investigation into his death in addition to public concern for the company's poor work security document. State Department of Labor investigations into the corporate have uncovered 17 office security violations between 2012 and 2023, together with six critical violations.