Wolfspeed, Inc. is an American developer and manufacturer of large-bandgap semiconductors, focused on silicon carbide and gallium nitride supplies and devices for energy and radio frequency applications equivalent to transportation, energy supplies, power inverters, and wireless techniques. Cree Analysis was founded in July 1987 in Durham, North Carolina. Five of the six founders - Neal Hunter, EcoLight home lighting 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 scholar researchers - have been searching for ways to leverage the properties of silicon carbide to enable semiconductors to function at greater operating temperatures and power levels. Additionally they knew silicon carbide could 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 workforce devised a option to grow silicon crystals in the laboratory, and in 1987 founded the corporate to produce silicon carbide to be used commercially in each semiconductors and EcoLight home lighting.

In 1989, the corporate launched the first blue LED, enabling the event of large, full-colour video screens and billboards. In 1991, the corporate launched the first business silicon carbide wafer. In 1993, the corporate turned a public firm 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 for use in distant phosphor lighting. In 2013, the company's first shopper merchandise, two family LED bulbs, qualified for Energy Star rating by the United States Environmental Safety Company. In July 2016, Infineon Applied sciences agreed to accumulate the corporate's Wolfspeed RF and EcoLight home lighting energy electronics gadgets unit for $850 million. Nevertheless, the deal was terminated in February 2017 attributable to regulators’ nationwide safety concerns. In March 2018, the company acquired the RF Power Business Infineon Applied sciences AG's for €345 million. In Might 2019, the company offered its Lighting Merchandise division (now branded as Cree Lighting) to Preferrred Industries.

In September 2019, the company introduced a $1 billion funding in a semiconductor manufacturing plant in Marcy, EcoLight 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 corporate bought its LED Business to Smart World Holdings for up to $300 million. In October 2021, the corporate modified its identify to Wolfspeed. In April 2022, the Marcy, New York, facility opened. In November 2022, the company introduced that co-founder and Chief Technology Officer John Palmour had died. In February 2023 it announced it will build its first European manufacturing facility 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 subsidized by the EU as an necessary challenge of widespread European curiosity (IPCEI) for Microelectronics and EcoLight Communication Applied sciences. In August 2023, it was introduced the Lowell-headquartered semiconductor company, MACOM had entered right into a definitive settlement to acquire Wolfspeed's RF enterprise.

In June 2024, Wolfspeed has delayed its $three billion semiconductor EcoLight home lighting plant in Germany to mid-2025, reflecting the EU's challenges in boosting local chip production. Wolfspeed announced the undertaking's indefinite hold in October 2024, citing low demand. As a result, ZF ceased to take part in the challenge. In October 2024, the Biden Administration introduced that it would supply Wolfspeed with up to $750 million in direct funding to support the corporate's new silicon carbide factory in North Carolina that makes the wafers utilized in advanced computer chips and its manufacturing facility in Marcy, New York. On May 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 proceed future operations after lower than anticipated annual gross sales have been reported. Wolfspeed's inventory slid to barely over a dollar per share that day. On June 18, 2025, Wolfspeed announced that they might sell itself to Apollo International Management in a deal that might put the corporate into a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, which might enable for the elimination of the vast majority of its multi-billion dollar debt.

Wolfspeed entered right into a restructuring assist settlement with its lenders and Renesas Electronics, and EcoLight home lighting announced that they'd file for prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy by July 1, as part of a plan to eliminate $4.6 billion of debt, stating they solely had about $1.1 billion left in cash. The corporate may also 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 began laying off employees from their manufacturing facility located in Racine, Wisconsin. On June 30, 2025, Wolfspeed filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. 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 loss of life as well as public concern for the company's poor work safety file. State Division of Labor investigations into the corporate have uncovered 17 workplace security violations between 2012 and EcoLight solutions 2023, reduce energy consumption including six critical violations.