Category Archives: LED Manufacturing

March 7, 2012 — The gallium nitride (GaN) power semiconductor market is currently small, with only 2 major device suppliers. However, new entrants are ramping to production, silicon-based electronics suppliers developing GaN technologies, and light-emitting diode (LED) makers diversifying capacity to make power electronics, according to Yole Developpement.

Also read: GaN LED market growth starts in 2012

The GaN power device industry generated less than $2.5M (estimated) revenues in 2011, with only IRF & EPC Corp. selling products on the open market. R&D contracts, qualification tests, and sampling buoyed the industry with extra revenue. GaN power device revenues are likely to stay below $10M for devices in 2012, with the rest being made through R&D sales.

While IRF and EPC will remain on top in the near term, several new entrants in the GaN power device sector will transition from qualification to production ramp-up in 2013, possibly taking revenues over $50 million. In 2015, as these new entrants achieve higher volumes and qualified 600V+ GaN devices hit the market, GaN will reach non-consumer applications and grow rapidly. In 2015, 12-15 players will together consume more than 100,000 (6" equivalent) epiwafers.

If GaN is qualified in the electric/hybrid electric vehicle (EV/HEV) sector, GaN device business could top the billion dollar line and the GaN-on-Si substrate market could exceed $300 million in revenues by 2019, explains Dr Philippe Roussel, Business Unit Manager, Power Electronics at Yole Développement. However, it is still unclear how car makers will choose between silicon carbide (SiC), GaN, or established silicon technology.

R&D activities are still fragmented between several substrate options for power electronics: GaN-on-sapphire, GaN-on-SiC, GaN-on-GaN, GaN-on-aluminum nitride (AlN) and GaN-on-Si. GaN-on-Si should take a dominant position, thanks to the availability of6" wafers with >7μm-thick GaN epi and 8" wafers under qualification.

Yole Développement identifies 5 companies positioned on the epiwafer business side and more than 6 GaN device pure-players, and another 15 Si-based power firms developing GaN technology.

LED makers are now looking at GaN power electronics, considering ways to convert existing underutilized LED fab capactity to make power semiconductors or epiwafers. That represents an “epsilon” today, but Yole Développement assumes it may create some waves in GaN industry growth. The two technologies are manufactured with similar processes and are subject to similar market dynamics. GaN epi technology came from the LED industry, while current GaN-on-Si epiwafer work is feeding both industries. Most epiwafer vendors are targeting LED and power segments with dedicated products and offers. Yole expects LED and power electronics manufacturing to become so intertwined in the future that the analysts are grouping them under "GaN device industry."

Figure. GaN device market size and list of applications sectors. SOURCE: Yole Power GaN report, March 2012.

Power device makers usually buy polished silicon wafers, conduct the epitaxy (or buy Si epi-wafers) unless using FZ thin wafers, then process the devices. This model is roughly the same for SiC technology. New GaN producers may not integrate metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) GaN epitaxy, instead buying GaN epiwafers and processing them in existing CMOS front-end lines. Alternatively, new entrants could fully integrate the GaN process, from the bare silicon, GaN epi, and front-end fab.

"Power GaN — 2012 edition," a report from Yole Développement, provides a complete analysis of the GaN device and substrate industry in the power electronics field: market forecasts, company involvements, etc.

Companies cited in the report: Aixtron, AZZURRO, BeMiTec, Bridgelux, CamGaN Ltd, Diotec, Dow Corning, Dowa Electronics Materials, Enphase , EPC Corp., EpiGaN, Episil, Fairchild, FBH, Freescale, Fuji Electric, Furukawa, GaN Systems, GLO AB, Global foundries, HelioDEL, Hitachi, III-V Lab, IMEC, Infineon, International Rectifier, Intersil, IQE, Kyma, Lattice Semiconductor, LG Electronics, LG Siltron, Lumileds, MicroGaN, Microsemi, Mitsubishi Electric, Nitek Inc., Nitronex, NTT, NXP, OnSemi, Osram, Oxford Instruments, Panasonic, Plessey Semiconductors, Powdec, Power Integrations, Renesas, Rose Street Lab, Samsung, Sanken Electric, Shimei Semiconductor, Shindengen, Siltronic, Soitec, STMicro, Sumitomo SEI, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Transluscent, Transphorm, TSMC, Tyndall National Institute, Veeco, Velox, Vishay

Author:
Philippe Roussel holds a PhD in Integrated Electronics Systems from the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) in LYON. He joined Yole Développement in 1998 and is leading the Compound Semiconductors, LED,Power Electronics and Photovoltaic department.

Yole Développement is a group of companies providing market research, technology analysis, strategy consulting, media in addition to finance services. Access reports at www.yole.fr.

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March 6, 2012 — Owens Design Inc., semiconductor, solar, and data storage capital equipment component supplier, released multiple customized film frame automated handlers to customers in the semiconductor and light-emitting diode (LED) manufacturing tool industries.

The handlers had to be customized for various wafer processing tool applications because of the variety of film frames and film frame cassettes. Owens Design combined expertise in film frame extraction, alignment and transport to develop the film frame system for semiconductor and LED process equipment suppliers. The Owens Design automated film frame handling product is easily customized to address various non-standard form factors, the company reports.

Automating the loading and unloading of film frames into a process tool reduces manufacturing time for semiconductor manufacturers and enables greater volume production of LEDs. Automation increases productivity while lowering LED manufacturing costs, added John Apgar, president of Owens Design.

Owens Design specializes in the engineering and manufacturing of capital equipment. For more information about Owens Design’s Customized Automated Film Frame Handler Solutions, please visit www.owensdesign.com.

March 6, 2012 — The market volume for high-brightness light-emitting diodes (HB LEDs) reached $12 billion in 2011, a 4.3% growth over 2010, reports EPIC, The European Photonics Industry Consortium.

While demand for LED backlight unit (BLU) display systems is still growing, consumption of LED chips not keeping up, as fewer LEDs are needed to realize a BLU than in previous generations. The demand for LEDs to produce edge-lit BLU has peaked and will settle at about 70% of its maximum value in 2010-2011. With average cost per LED also dropping, revenues attributed to LEDs for each display screen are declining rapidly, even as production of BLUs based on LEDs rises through 2014.

Also read: Cheaper LED backlights require LED, plate materials changes

Figure. The EPIC Bellwether Index of key companies is an important indicator of the commercial development of solid-state lighting.

In 2011, the bellwether companies showed varying levels of performance. Aixtron was challenged by scale-back of metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) purchases, due to slowing demand in the back lighting market and the end of purchase subsidies by the Chinese government. LED chip manufacturers like EPISTAR and Cree showed mixed results, while lighting systems companies like Philips and Zumtobel fared very well.

This data, as well as more on the response of the lighting and display industries to one of the most difficult economic crises in recent years, is presented in a new report from EPIC, LEDs: The 2011 Market Review. HB-LED and OLED unit production figures as well as revenues are detailed for major players around the world for the 2-year period of 2010 and 2011. The report is distributed exclusively to EPIC members.

EPIC is a leading European photonics industry association. Internet: www.epic-assoc.com.

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March 2, 2012 — The National Physical Laboratory in the UK is leading a new EMRP project on thin film manufacturing metrology for industries such as opto electronics, plastic and printed electronics, displays and lighting, memories and solar cells.

NPL is joined by National Measurement Institutes from across Europe, and other partners. It is a pan-European initiative.

The project aims to create validated and traceable metrology technologies for thin film materials properties, composition, and structure; and for controlling large-area homogeneity and consistency of properties.

The project will develop the necessary metrology to control consistency of thin film processing and improve production quality to reduce costs and time-to-market for new products.

Find out more about the EMRP Thin Films project at http://projects.npl.co.uk/optoelectronic_films/

February 29, 2012 — Epistar, a leading manufacturer of optoelectronic materials and devices, installed its first AIXTRON SE CRIUS II-XL system in a 19 x 4" wafer configuration to mass produce ultra-high-brightness (UHB) blue and white light emitting diodes (LEDs).

The CRIUS II-XL close coupled showerhead (CCS) multi-wafer metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) reactor system successfully passed the process demonstration and acceptance test at Epistar, and will now be qualified in mass production. Epistar plan to purchase more CRIUS II-XL systems when they expand their production capacity. Dr. Bernd Schulte, COO of AIXTRON, expects the tools to increase yield and directly translate into enhanced competitiveness for Epistar’s products.

The CCS technology is used in AIXTRON’s current range of reactors. Reagents are introduced into the reactor through a water-cooled showerhead surface over the entire area of deposition. The showerhead is close to the substrates and is designed to enable precursors to be separated right up to the point where they are injected onto the substrates through a multiplicity of small tubes. The reagents are injected into the reactor chamber through separate orifices in a water-cooled showerhead injector, to create a very uniform distribution of reagent gases. Substrates are placed on top of a rotating susceptor, which is resistively heated. The three-zone heater enables adjustment of the temperature profile to provide temperature uniformity over the susceptor diameter.

Located at the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park in Taiwan, Epistar Corporation develops, manufactures, and markets UHB LEDs. Also read: SemiLEDs, LG Siltron, Epistar install Veeco MOCVD tools

For further information on AIXTRON (FSE: AIXA, ISIN DE000A0WMPJ6; NASDAQ: AIXG, ISIN US0096061041), visit www.aixtron.com.

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China’s LED subsidy update


February 28, 2012

February 28, 2012 — The formal announcement of China’s light emitting diode (LED) subsidy program, likely in the first half of March, may drive tool utilization expansions for LED chip makers, reports Barclays Capital.

Based on Barclays’ latest checks with Chinese government officials, they expect the LED subsidy program will be focused on downstream luminaires, with the central government providing subsidies for LED luminaires and lighting products that have been centrally qualified and listed in the government-driven LED product catalog. Additionally, certain municipal governments may match the subsidies of the central government, lowering the product cost further.

Preference will be given to domestic LED component and luminaire manufacturers, though foreign suppliers will benefit from the program as well. As for the likely impact to LED lighting adoption in China, the likely demand ramp will first be seen in the commercial and industrial segments, before spreading to the consumer segment down the line.

Also read: Strategies in Light takeaways: LED expectations for the short- and long-term

What does this mean for metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) tool expenditures? The anticipated growth in LED demand this year will be insufficient to drive the need for new capacity, given very depressed industry utilization levels. China’s LED maker consolidation is likely to take at least 1-2 years, posing a continued headwind to MOCVD demand. MOCVD replacement tools therefore are not going to meaningfully contribute to demand in 2012, prompting Barclays to lower its tool-buying forecast from 400 to 315. The analysts also lowered 2013 estimates from 440 to 350 tools.

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February 27, 2012 – PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall — Cleantech Solutions International Inc. (NASDAQ:CLNT), metal components manufacturer, has delivered two units of sample sapphire chambers and one unit of a solar furnace to an international customer. Additional chamber and furnace orders are expected once the customer completes testing and approval of the initial units.

The customer ordered the sample furnace for manufacturing polysilicon solar wafers. The sapphire chambers will be used to manufacture light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The systems were ordered in August 2011. Cleantech Solutions stays in close contact after tool delivery to consult on technical needs.

Cleantech Solutions supplies forgings products, fabricated products and machining services to a range of clean technology customers, primarily in the wind power sector. For more information, visit http://www.cleantechsolutionsinternational.com.

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February 24, 2012 — A team of scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed a process for creating glass-based, inorganic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that produce light in the ultraviolet (UV) range, which could lead to biomedical devices with active components made from nanostructured systems.

LEDs based on solution-processed inorganic nanocrystals are inexpensively produced, reliable, and chemically stable even in harsh environments. Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Sergio Brovelli, in collaboration with international researchers led by Alberto Paleari at the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy, created a fabrication process that gets the LEDs to emit UV light.

The glass-based material emits light in the ultraviolet spectrum and can be integrated onto silicon chips. The new devices are inorganic; the glass is chemically inert and mechanically stable, with electric conductivity and electroluminescence. A new synthesis strategy allows fabrication of all inorganic LEDs via a wet-chemistry approach, which is scalable to industrial quantities with a very low start-up cost.

Figure. Embedding nanocrystals in glass creates UV-producing LEDs for biomedical applications. SOURCE: Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The oxide-in-oxide design allows production of a material that behaves as an ensemble of semiconductor junctions distributed in the glass, rather than the sharp interface of two semiconductors found in traditional LEDs. The active part of the device consists of tin dioxide nanocrystals covered with a shell of tin monoxide embedded in standard glass: by tuning the shell thickness is it possible to control the electrical response of the whole material.

LEDs can be integrated in active lab-on-chip diagnostic platforms, or as light sources implanted into the body to trigger photochemical reactions. Such devices could selectively activate light-sensitive drugs for better medical treatment or probe for the presence of fluorescent markers in medical diagnostics.

Related stories: The ultimate limit of Moore’s Law: The one-atom transistor and IBM discovers magnetic storage limit at 12 atoms

The work is reported this week in the online Nature Communications: "Fully inorganic oxide-in-oxide ultraviolet nanocrystal light emitting devices," http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms1683. Its authors are Sergio Brovelli1, 2, Norberto Chiodini1, Roberto Lorenzi1, Alessandro Lauria1, Marco Romagnoli3,4 and Alberto Paleari1
1 Department of Materials Science, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy.
2 Chemistry Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico.
3 Material Processing Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
4 On leave from Photonic Corp, Culver City, California.

The paper was produced with the financial support of Cariplo Foundation, Italy, under Project 20060656, the Russian Federation under grant 11.G34.31.0027, the Silvio Tronchetti Provera Foundation, and Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Directed Research and Development Program.

Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and URS for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. Learn more at www.lanl.gov.

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February 23, 2012 — SEMICON China takes place March 20-22 in Shanghai, with SOLARCON China and FPD China, together featuring 1,000+ exhibitors, 150+ government delegations, and 50,000+ attendees.

2011 saw 26% growth for semiconductor fab equipment spending in China, according to the most recent SEMI Consensus Forecast. China’s current Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) targets expansion for China’s microelectronics supply chain to meet the needs of the regional and global markets. US$40+ billion will be invested to fuel Chinese semiconductor industry growth during this period.

SEMICON China showcases the latest advanced manufacturing technologies and programs on the latest technology and business trends in the semiconductor industry and emerging markets. Keynote speakers include:

  • Tzu-Yin Chiu, CEO and executive director, SMIC
  • Tien Wu, director and COO, ASE Group
  • Yu Wang, director, president, Hua Hong Semiconductor; president, Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing
  • Charlene Barshefsky, former U.S. Trade representative, senior International partner, WilmerHale
  • Yoichi Yano, executive VP, Renesas Electronics
  • Walden C. Rhines, CEO, Mentor Graphics

This year’s event features four Theme Pavilions, each focused on a growing critical technology market:

  • The China Market IC Applications Pavilion spotlights companies and technologies focused on serving the fabless and IC design community. From IC design services to foundries to system assembly and test, the Pavilion showcases the best of China’s IC supply chain. Pavilion highlights include: Focus on 450mm wafer manufacturing; advanced automotive semiconductors; power ICs; assembly and test; and MEMS design and manufacturing.
  • The LED Manufacturing Pavilion features manufacturing technologies and information specifically focused on advanced LED and solid state lighting. China currently leads the world in terms of the number of active and under construction LED epi wafer and chip fabs. In 2011, over 400 new MOCVDs systems were installed in China, more than any other country in the world.
  • The TSV Pavilion showcases technologies and solutions for 3D IC and TSV systems. The growth of 3D IC and TSV has spawned a whole ecosystem for TSV technologies from industry, academia and research institutions, to equipment and material suppliers. 
  • The Secondary Equipment Applications, Service and Fab Productivity Solutions Pavilion  features exhibits and solutions for the growing secondary equipment market in China. Analysts project sales of used semiconductor equipment China to increase to between US$ 800 million and US$1 billion in 2012.

Prior to SEMICON China, March 18-19, the China Semiconductor Technology International Conference (CSTIC) will offer more than 300 high-level presentations, covering all aspects of semiconductor technology and manufacturing. Keynote speakers include representatives from IMEC, Samsung, and IBM.

SEMICON China also includes LED China Conference 2012 (March 21), addressing current government policies and support for LED manufacturing expansion; new developments in LED applications, LED fab equipment, and materials; and discussion on how the China LED fab industry can continue its growth.

March 20-22 will host a review of China’s High-Tech Parks, which help shape China’s semiconductor and emerging market (photovoltaic, HB-LED, etc.) industries. China’s regional governments overseeing these high-tech parks strongly support and are willing to provide additional resources to develop the semiconductor industry. Leaders from China’s major municipal governments and high-tech parks are invited to introduce their development plans and special policies. This High-Tech Park review area provides an excellent opportunity for companies which plan to expand China operations and market access.

Additional information regarding SEMICON China 2012 exhibition, programs, and registration is available at www.semiconchina.org.

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February 23, 2012 — coolingZONE LED 2012 Conference, May 29-31 in Berlin, Germany, is soliciting technical presentations on light-emitting diode (LED) energy consumption, LED packaging, heat and air-flow simulations of LED products, and related topics. The coolingZONE LED Conference combines the technical and manufacturer presentations on LED thermal management, and includes technical short courses on the proper cooling and characterization of LEDs.

Papers and speakers are requested on:

  • smartCOOLING of LEDs
  • Thermal transport in LED-based lighting
  • Thermal characterization of LEDs
  • Heat flow and air flow simulations in LED lighting applications
  • Thermal coupling in LED-based lighting systems
  • Cooling solutions for LED-based lighting – from residential to industrial applications
  • Advances in LED packaging
  • Thermal characterization of LED cooling solutions
  • How LED packaging affects its thermal management
  • Temperature and its role in LED reliability and life expectancy predictions
  • LED energy consumption and its comparison with other lighting methods
  • LED cooling – from natural convection to liquid cooling

Abstracts must be submitted by April 1, 2012 at www.coolingZONE.com.

Selected presenters will be notified on April 16, and will have until April 27 to submit their final drafts.

coolingZONE is a global community for information and education on thermal management and heat transfer. These services are provided online and through conferences & short courses.

InnovationFab is a trade mark of Key Management Consult BV, to lead new technology to commercialization. It is an enabler and facilitator at the intersection of photonics, electronics, materials, and processing technology.

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