Category Archives: LED Manufacturing

May 29, 2012 — Reporting from Barclays Capital’s BarCap 2012 Global TMT Conference, the company’s analysts say that the light emitting diode (LED) industry remains in oversupply, and 90%+ utilization rates being reported in Taiwan’s LED fabs are a short-lived event.

However, the LED industry is increasingly confident that supply and demand are becoming more balanced from the end of 2012 onward. Lighting demand growth will start in 2013, driving more equipment bookings from Q3 2012 onward. NPD Displaysearch’s latest report supports this point of view: "After a surge in 2010 and oversupply in 2011 that suppressed 2012 fab, LED makers will see a leveling out of supply and demand into better equilibrium."

For now, demand for metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) tools remains weak, Barclays reports. “While the precise timeline of an order recovery is still hard to pinpoint, both Veeco and Aixtron expressed confidence in an order recovery in 2013 at the latest,” the analysts report. Total MOCVD tool shipments will gradually recover from the 2012 trough levels of ~300 tools to a more normalized level of ~520 tools per year.

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May 28, 2012 — Cree Inc. (Nasdaq:CREE) will be looking for a replacement, as 6-year EVP of finance and CFO John Kurtzweil resigned to pursue other opportunities at Extreme Networks, a small, growing firm. During his tenure, the light-emitting diode (LED) company Cree grew from $400 million in revenues to over $1 billion, and employees have grown 250% to almost 5,000. Cree was ranked the 6th largest (tied with Philips Lumileds) LED supplier of 2011 by Strategies Unlimited.

Michael McDevitt will serve as interim CFO while the company searches for a replacement with Russell Reynolds Associates, executive search consultants. Kurtzweil will remain with Cree through June 15 to transition his responsibilities.

While Cree’s stock price has been volatile in response to Kurtzweil’s departure, analysts at Maxim Group say the important matter is not that Kurtzweil is leaving, but who will replace him. Cree was around the same size when he joined as Extreme Networks is now, and Maxim notes that his career history has been on growing small tech firms. Kurtzweil’s departure from his last 3 employees came prior to large gains in their stocks, Maxim notes. “In light of CREE’s growth and development, we believe this represents a sensible step given its strategic shift downstream,” Maxim’s analysis states.

“We remain on track with our targets,” said Chuck Swoboda, Cree chairman and CEO. A CFO more experienced with large organizations and the commercial/consumer end markets CREE now targets will be the ideal replacement CFO, Maxim said.

Interim CFO McDevitt has been in the position before, during the 2006 transition, and has held corporate controller, director of financial planning and director of sales operations roles at the company.

Cree makes lighting-class LEDs, LED lighting, and semiconductor products for power and radio frequency (RF) applications. For additional information, please refer to www.cree.com.

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May 26, 2012 — Intel Corporation (INTC) will invest more than $40 million over the next 5 years in a worldwide network of university research communities called the Intel Collaborative Research Institutes (ICRI). The ICRI program is based on Intel’s US-based Intel Science and Technology Centers (ISTCs), and will bring together experts from academia and industry to help explore and invent in the next generation of technologies.

"The new Intel Collaborative Research Institute program underscores our commitment to establishing and funding collaborative university research to fuel global innovation in key areas and help address some of today’s most challenging problems," said Justin Rattner, CTO, Intel. "Forming a multidisciplinary community of Intel, faculty and graduate student researchers from around the world will lead to fundamental breakthroughs in some of the most difficult and vexing areas of computing technology."

The three ICRIs will collaborate with their own multi-university communities and other ICRIs, as well as the US-based ISTCs. Each institute will have a specialized focus, but is encouraged to incorporate the unique environments within their region, country and area of research.

The IRCIs include 2 established centers and 3 new ones:

The 2 previously established centers include Intel Visual Computing Institute (Saarland University) and the Intel-NTU Connected Context Computing Center (National Taiwan University).

The 3 new ICRIs include-

The ICRI for Sustainable Connected Cities, United Kingdom. This joint collaboration among Intel, Imperial College London and University College London aims to address challenging social, economic and environmental problems of city life with computing technology. Using London as a test bed, researchers will explore technologies to make cities more aware and adaptive by harnessing real-time user and city infrastructure data. For example, through a city urban cloud platform, the city managers could perform real-time city optimizations such as predicting the effects of extreme weather events on the city’s water and energy supplies, resulting in delivery of near-real-time information to citizens through citywide displays and mobile applications.

The ICRI for Secure Computing, Germany. At this Institute, Intel and the Technische Universität Darmstadt will explore ways to dramatically advance the trustworthiness of mobile and embedded devices and ecosystems. For example, the joint research will seek ways to develop secure, car-to-device communications for added driver safety; new approaches to secure mobile commerce, and a better understanding of privacy and its various implementations. By grounding the research in the needs of future users, the institute will then research software and hardware to enable robust, available, survivable systems for those use cases.

The ICRI for Computational Intelligence, Israel. In a joint collaboration with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the ICRI will explore ways to enable computing systems to augment human capabilities in a wide array of complex tasks. For example, by developing body sensors that continuously monitor the owner’s body, researchers could then pre-process this information and take appropriate actions. The system can continuously monitor human functions from the brain, heart, blood, eyes and more, and send this data to a remote server that will combine them with other data such as environmental weather conditions, along with historical data, and could proactively warn people about a potential headache or dizziness during driving.

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) is a world leader in computing innovation. The company designs and builds the essential technologies that serve as the foundation for the world’s computing devices. Learn more at www.intel.com.

May 24, 2012 — Jackie Sturm, VP of TMG and GM of Global Sourcing and Procurement at Intel, will bring to light some of the emerging, growth markets for semiconductors, and what they mean for chipmakers and the fab suppliers in the first session of The ConFab, “The Economic Outlook for the Semiconductor Industry.”

Sturm will join Dan Hutcheson, CEO and Chairman, VLSI Research; and Jim Feldhan, president, Semico in the Session, chaired by Solid State Technology editor-in-chief Pete Singer. The ConFab takes place June 3-6 in Las Vegas and is an invite-only meeting of semiconductor executives and the supply chain.

The worldwide chip market is expected to suffer a slow year in 2012 ($323.2 billion), as global economic prospects remaining uncertain. Although spending on fab equipment is expected to drop in H1 2012, it is then expected to sharply increase in H2. What is driving the semiconductor market? Is the semiconductor market universally maturing? No, says Sturm. The aggregated, popular indicators of slow growth mask the bright stories and opportunities in emerging markets, innovative devices for consumers, and business refresh cycles. What this means for the semiconductor industry, for chipmakers as well as their materials suppliers and equipment suppliers, is opportunity.

Jackie Sturm has been at Intel since 1993, serving as VP of Finance for Technology and Manufacturing and NAND Systems Group, Intel Capital, New Business Group and Intel Communications Group. Prior to Intel, she worked for Hewlett Packard and Apple Computer.

Learn more about The ConFab at http://www.theconfab.com/index.html

More ConFab session previews:

Bridging the fabless-foundry gap

EUV lithography readiness

Packaging progress

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May 24, 2012 — Ted Konnerth of Egret Consulting Group saw light emitting diode (LED) adoption at a turning point from “coming” to “here” at LightFair 2012, with even the biggest lighting companies endorsing the technology. “LED is now the dominant force in lighting for the foreseeable future,” Egret reports. Cooper reported a 12% adoption rate for LEDs in 2011. Would the adoption rate have been significantly higher had Cooper and the other major lighting players invested more attention to the technology sooner?

LightFair was an opportunity to see how lighting is evolving, as terminology like epitaxy and metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), die (meaning the LED chip made on a wafer), chromaticity, binning, and so forth enter the lexicon, Egret reports. The integration of electronics with electrical has created a culture of innovation with new markets not previously explored in lighting, from smart offices and homes to controlling plant and animal growth, and much more.

While the big, established lighting companies may “be limited to modifying legacy construction-related equipment into LED-compatibility,” hundreds of emerging companies are creating unique products or solutions adapted to specific applications, Egret asserts. Many of these companies will become significant players in the new lighting industry; and most will develop their own unique channel solutions, bypassing the traditional pyramid of profits built into legacy companies.

With LED lighting finally entrenched, LightFair showcased the market opportunity for LED lamp manufacturers and electronics firms making LED lamp replacements. A “Big Three” in lamps is now outdated, Egret reports, with the potential for socket replacement of LED sources at over 30 billion sockets in the US. This kind of volume necessitates a lot of manufacturers, with far broader than traditional distribution channel strategies for legacy lamp sources.

Legacy lighting industry people are being absorbed into nascent LED companies, noted Egret. Industry talent downsized out of traditional manufacturers during the recent recession is now showing up in start-ups and other young LED companies. While some good people are now staffing emerging companies. Egret warns that some “marginal talent” has ended up in good companies that “don’t understand how to properly vet a candidate due to their lack of understanding the industry channel influences.”

Egret Consulting Group is a recruiting company for the electronics industry. Read more of Egret Consulting’s views from LightFair in “LightFair and other LED issues,” by Ted Konnerth, at http://www.egretconsulting.com/2012/05/23/lightfair-and-other-led-issues/.

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May 23, 2012 — EpiGaN NV opened its gallium nitride (GaN) epitaxial material production site, on the Research Campus Hasselt in Belgium. EpiGaN’s gallium nitride on silicon (GaN-on-Si) material is used in next-generation power electronics.

The site currently produces GaN layers on Si wafers up to 150mm in diameter, with 200mm wafer production in the works. Specific applications can also use silicon carbide (SiC). The company sampled first wafers to Europe, the US, and Asia in 2011. Power electronics will grow to $15 billion in sales of discrete components in 2020, says Lux Research Inc., with GaN and SiC taking a 22% market share for $3.3 billion in sales.

Flemish Minister Ingrid Lieten and Limburg, Belgium Governor Herman Reynders attended the opening. The site is part of the Eindhoven-Leuven-Aachen knowledge triangle, which offers infrastructure for cleanroom-based facilities and access to international customers.

GaN-on-Si power electronics boast higher performance than silicon-based power semiconductors, and target efficient power convertors, better power supplies for computers, motor drivers, inverters for solar energy technologies and greener transport with smaller environmental footprint. Because GaN-on-Si uses the same abundant silicon wafers as traditional semiconductors, it offers a cost scaling advantage over less-common materials. GaN-on-Si is also a future-generation material for light-emitting diode (LED) manufacturing, with several companies developing prototypes.

“Recent announcements indicate growing interest in GaN-on-silicon processing to reduce cost and higher voltage GaN processes which will improve power handling performance," said Asif Anwar, Director, Strategy Analytics Strategic Technologies Practice, in a recent report on GaN.

EpiGaN starts with 6 employees and is currently hiring more engineers and sales persons. The company was spun out of research organization IMEC to commercialize GaN-on-Si for electronics applications. This kind of strategic research development is an example of ways to address important challenges for society with innovative and state of the art technology, said Ingrid Lieten, Vice Minister-President of the Flemish Government

EpiGaN was incorporated in 2010 as a spin-off of imec. In 2011, EpiGaN added a strong consortium of investors, formed by Robert Bosch Venture Capital, Capricorn CleanTech Fund and LRM, enabling the installation of a new production facility. For more information visit www.epigan.com.

May 22, 2012 – ATR-Newswire — Quantum dots (QD) will grow to a $7480.25 million market by 2022, at a ten-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 55.2%, according to Electronics.ca Publications’ report, "Quantum Dots (QD) Market – Global Forecast & Analysis 2012 – 2022."

Quantum dots are advanced semiconductor nanoparticles that output power/light according to nanoparticle size, from 2 to 10nm, and input source. Quantum dots are produced in a variety of methods, such as advanced epitaxial growth in nanocrystals, ion implant, and advanced lithography patterning. Work is being done on continuous-flow microreactors for QD fab, transfer printing, "cooking," and other process technologies.

Quantum dots are primarily in research stages for most applications, with the exception of healthcare. Healthcare benefits from the high precision in tissue labeling, cancer therapy, tumor detection, etc. that QD-based devices can provide.

Other promising application areas include light-emitting diode (LED) products. LED lighting is growing and set to expand dramatically. QD lighting is highly efficient and cost-effective. QD Vision has collaborated with Nexxus Lighting to launch its first QD LED light. QD displays are a related application area. QD Vision recently sold unspecified "quantum dot electroluminescent devices" to the US Department of Defense.

Solar cells are also incorporating quantum dots to control cell efficiency. University of Toronto has achieved an efficiency of 4.2% conversion with solar cell based on colloidal QDs (CQD). Researchers are also working on QD-based paint that can be applied to panels or walls to capture solar energy.

The Americas hold a leadership position in the QD technology market; followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific and China (APAC). Other areas of activity include the Middle East and Africa.

Access the report at http://www.electronics.ca/publications/products/Quantum-Dots-%28QD%29-Market%3A-Global-Forecast-and-Analysis-2012%252d2017.html

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This article was originally published in the April/May 2012 issue of our sister publication LEDs Magazine and is republished here with permission.

May 21, 2012 — LED manufacturers must choose the appropriate materials and processes to fight low yields. This is especially true in wafer bonding for vertical LEDs.

LED manufacturers in different regions of the world are confronting similar challenges concerning wafer bonding, particularly in the processing of vertical light-emitting diode (VLED) chip architectures. VLEDs offer certain key advantages over their lateral LED counterparts, though the lateral approach is a simpler manufacturing. This article covers the differences — in terms of processing and the optimization of light output — between vertical and lateral LEDs.

Both LED designs begin with the epitaxial growth of gallium nitride (GaN) on a sapphire substrate, but that is the end of their similarities. In a lateral LED design, the sapphire remains a part of the GaN LED stack. Since sapphire is an insulator, both contacts to the LED diode structure must be formed at the topside of the LED die, taking up valuable device real estate.

A simple back-of-the-envelope calculation of surface loss for a 4” LED wafer, assuming 300 x 300µm die and 100 x 100µm wire-bonding pads, reveals that each diode contact, to p-doped and n-doped GaN, consumes about 10% of the wafer surface.

In contrast, VLEDs are formed by full-wafer deposition of a metal-film stack, followed by wafer bonding with a carrier substrate. Since one electrical contact is the bonding layer itself and hence buried inside the LED stack, VLEDs immediately save the aforementioned 10% of real estate. In addition, electrical injection is more efficient for VLEDs, where lateral LED have difficulties, especially with higher current density.

Optimizing light output

Optimizing the LED’s real estate and electrical efficiency is only one aspect of the process: getting the light output from the LED remains a challenge. In GaN-based LEDs, the crystal planes of the GaN lead to a concentrated light emission normal to the sapphire’s c-plane, i.e., normal to the LED surface. In lateral LED designs, photons also couple into the transparent sapphire wafer, so that light is also emitted from the LED’s sidewalls. Since losses are higher, efficiency is decreased.

To increase light output in VLEDs, a metallic mirror is deposited prior to the metal bonding layers. The mirror will redirect emitted light to the LED surface. Light extraction is further optimized by creating a resonant cavity, and with surface roughening. Light extraction efficiency improves and the light is well directed to the user.

Added complexity with wafer bonding

If the benefits are so profound, why don’t all manufacturers produce VLEDs? One reason is a complex patent situation. In addition, LED makers must thoroughly understand the wafer bonding step to achieve high process yield. In VLEDs, the bonding layer is multifunctional. As electrical contact to the p-GaN, the bonding layer needs high conductivity to reduce ohmic losses. As the heat transfer layer between the LED and the heat sink, the bonding layer needs to have high thermal conductivity.

From a material standpoint, many eutectic metal systems (e.g. gold/tin, Au/Sn) or diffusion solders (e.g. gold/indium, Au/In) fulfill these requirements. However, each presents different processing requirements. The metal system determines the bonding temperature. Because the sapphire substrate and the carrier substrates have quite different coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE), a metal system with low bonding temperature will keep strain at a more manageable level. The selection of these layers is beyond the scope of this article, but typically metal layers such as platinum, aluminum, and gold, or combinations of these materials, are used.

Next, adhesion and diffusion barriers have to be chosen to contain the diffusive metals from the injection contacts or mirror layer of the LED structure. The correct choices will result in a high-yield layer transfer process.

GaN-on-silicon: the rookie

The potential use of GaN-on-silicon in LED manufacturing is an exciting prospect that seems likely to come to fruition in the next several years. Announcements by Osram Opto Semiconductors, Samsung LED (now Samsung Electronics), and Bridgelux have indicated that companies are 2-3 years from entering mass production, with laboratory LED efficiencies comparable to LEDs on sapphire. With a silicon substrate, wafer bonding provides one of the enabling steps of transferring the LEDs after growth.

Conclusion

Wafer bonding is a sophisticated process that requires extensive knowledge of material science. However, given the right material selection and process expertise, it can prove enabling when bringing up stable, next-generation LED manufacturing processes.

Thomas Uhrmann, Ph.D., is Business Development Manager, EV Group (EVG). Learn more about the company at http://www.evgroup.com/en.

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May 18, 2012 — China has designated light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as one of the 7th emerging industries to be fostered for next 5 years in the Twelfth Five-year Plan. China is accelerating standardization plans, encouraging local production, and subsidizing purchases of LED lighting. Displaybank provides an overview of the status of China’s LED plan.

Currently, the Chinese LED industry is on the stage of "Factory Building," slowly transitioning to the "Technology" stage. Once the industry establishes localized LED production from epi wafers to LED bulbs, and public and private distribution channels selling LEDs, it will then focus on research and development (R&D) of substrate materials, production processes and equipment, and phosphors.

At the end of the Twelfth Five-year Plan, China expects a localization of LED chips to 70% of total. Production of China-based LED chipmakers is expected to grow, beginning this year.

China’s government released details this week of its subsidy for LED lighting purchases — RMB2.2 billion.

China is expected to be the largest LED consumer; however, companies will be wise to understand the Chinese government and its direction for LEDs before looking for a share of this market.

“China LED Industry Analysis – Policy/Standard/Certification Analysis and Corporate trend of China LED Industry” covers the Chinese government’s policy direction and intention and development of China-based LED makers. Access the report at http://www.displaybank.com/_eng/research/report_view.html?id=821&cate=1

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May 18, 2012 — SEMICON West is less than 2 months away, July 10-12 in San Francisco, CA. Plan your attendee schedule now with highlights from the Extreme Electronics “show within a show;” 4 strong keynotes; sessions on device architecture and node shrink, lithography, 450mm wafers and more.

Attendee registration is $50 through June 2. On-site registration is $150.

Extreme Electronics

The Extreme Electronics events take place in the exhibit hall and comprise more than 25 free technical presentations on micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS), light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and printed/plastic electronics. These adjacent markets share “synergies” in manufacturing materials, equipment, and processes with semiconductor fab and assembly, which the Extreme Electronics sessions aim to maximize, SEMICON West organizers say. Each session begins at 10:30am.

Speakers in “Taking MEMS to the Next Level: Transitioning to a Profitable High-Volume Business,” July 10, will share practical solutions for scaling industry growth. In partnership with MEMS Industry Group (MIG), speakers come from Yole Développement, Hillcrest Labs, Coventor, Hanking Electronics, Micralyne, Applied Materials, Nikon, ScanNano, NIST and more.

“Enabling the Next-Generation of HB-LEDs,” July 11, will focus on the current state of some disruptive technologies for improving manufacturing yields, with speakers from Cree, Soraa, Everlight Electronics, EV Group, Canaccord Genuity, LayTec AG, Seoul Semiconductor, Lattice Power, Yole Développement, GT Advanced Technologies, and more.

In partnership with the FlexTech Alliance, “Practical Plastic Electronics: Bringing Disruptive Flexible and Organic Materials into Volume Electronics Manufacturing,” July 12, speakers will give progress reports on organic LED (OLED) displays and lighting, solid state batteries, and flexible mounting of rigid die. Look for speakers from IMEC, Panasonic, DisplaySearch, Imprint Energy, Applied Materials, and MC 10.

Keynotes

Shekhar Borkar, director of Extreme-scale Technologies at Intel Labs, will provide the technology keynote on Intel’s mid- and long-term development efforts in IC scaling, power reduction, and performance improvements, on July 10. That afternoon, Applied Materials’ Mark Pinto, EVP and GM, Energy and Environmental Solutions, will keynote. Applied Materials recently began a major restructuring of its EES business, which includes LED and solar photovoltaics manufacturing tools.

On July 11, keynote speakers include Ivo Bolsens, Ph.D., SVP and CTO, Xilinx and James G. Brown, president of global business development, First Solar. SEMI will also present an Executive Summit moderated by Jonathan Davis, SEMI, on the 11th.

TechXPOT sessions

Fully depleted transistor architectures on Tuesday, next-generation lithography on Wednesday, and the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) on Thusday. Learn more about these individual sessions in SEMICON West heralds 22nm, EUVL, 450mm, mobile electronics speakers

Best of West

SEMI will present Best of West awards for the best exhibitor product introduced since last year’s SEMICON West. Winners will be selected by an independent panel of highly qualified judges from academia and the industry. Entries are judged on their financial impact on the industry, engineering or scientific achievement, or societal impact and benefits. Have a product to submit for Best of West? Read more here — deadline is May 21.

For more information and to register, visit www.semiconwest.org.

Solid State Technology’s editors will be attending SEMICON West with you, sharing updates on the Website, in daily e-newsletters, and via twitter @solid_statetech and @PetesTweetsPW

with #semiconwest.