Brighter LEDs with ARC Energy’s sapphire technology

July 5, 2012 – BUSINESS WIRE — Sapphire grown in ARC Energy’s proprietary CHES yields 5% brighter light emitting diodes (LEDs) than the industry standard, according to the company’s study. The study purposefully included sapphire material exhibiting a wide range of etch pit distortion (EPD) levels to determine whether or not EPD affects LED manufacturing.

The study took sapphire through the complete LED chip manufacturing process and concluded that all material passed LED standards and that no correlation was found between LED performance and EPD level of CHES wafers.

ARC Energy’s CHES furnaces are unique in several ways. One key advantage is dramatically higher material utilization due to sapphire growth on the c-plane. This approach produces large diameter substrates at a significantly lower cost. Greater than 75% material utilization can be achieved using c-plane ARC Energy CHES furnaces while other methods are limited to less than 35%. CHES furnaces are also highly automated—a key feature which brings operator costs down and provides consistent output.

CHES furnaces are designed to produce higher performance sapphire at larger wafer sizes compared to older technologies. A CHES furnace produces high-yield sapphire up to 10" diameter, providing higher efficiency downstream in the LED manufacturing process and upstream as c-plane growth significantly reduces waste.

The study results show CHES-grown sapphire is capable of production-level performance. As the HB-LED market expands, CHES gives sapphire growers significant advantages, including higher yield, a scalable technology, and better LED chip performance. ARC Energy offers CHES furnaces and a variety of support services for crystal growth companies seeking to lead in the HB-LED industry.

The results were released in the white paper “LED Manufacturing Study on CHES Sapphire” available at www.arc-energy.com. The company is performing a series on CHES called “CHES Foundations,” covering CHES technology and CHES furnaces.

The Advanced RenewableEnergy Company, LLC (ARC Energy) provides highly automated and efficient sapphire crystal growth and processing systems to enable rapid scale production and cost reduction of LEDs. For additional information about ARC Energy, visit www.arc-energy.com.

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