This paper summarizes recent experimental and simulation results on etching, growth rates and nitrogen incorporation in silicon carbide epitaxial layers grown in a horizontal hot-wall chemical vapor deposition reactor. The combination of heat and mass transfer modeling, process simulation and experimental studies allows the identification and the quantification of the growth and doping histories. It is demonstrated that, in this high temperature technology, (a) it is difficult to optimize the deposition rate uniformity for large-scale substrates and (b) hydrogen etching during growth is of great importance. Finally, new results concerning the influence of hydrogen etched nitrogen on the nitrogen doping profile in the epilayer are shown. A simple model taking only into account N-2 adsorption is not sufficient to correctly explain the doping variations. Specific experiments have been realized to identify and quantify additional phenomena such as the etching of nitrogen by H-2 during the deposition process. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.