Category Archives: LED Packaging and Testing

The industrial semiconductor market will post a 9.7 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next several years as revenue rises from $34.8 billion in 2013 to $55.2 billion in 2018, according to IHS, a global source of critical information and insight. Increased capital spending by companies and continued economic growth, especially in the United States and China, and will help spur demand and drive sales growth for industrial semiconductors.

Based on the latest information from the Q4 2014 Industrial Semi Market Report from IHS Semiconductors and Components Service, factory automation, building and home control and commercial aircraft are driving demand for industrial semiconductors. In fact, industrial semiconductor sales posted 4.7 percent growth in the third quarter (Q3) of 2014 alone compared to the previous quarter. By the end of 2014 the market grew an estimated 16.8 percent over the previous year. Demand was especially strong for optical LEDs, which grew 23.4 percent, rising from $6.3 billion to $7.7 billion. Discrete power transistors and thyristors posted 13.4 percent growth, rising from $5.5 billion in 2013 to $6.3 billion in 2014.

ihs industrial semi report

 

Industrial OEM factory revenues were expected to grow 8.3 percent in 2014 on increased sales in the building and home-control market. High-growth categories include LED lighting and IP cameras and other digital video surveillance products.

“Because of strong growth in the industrial segment, semiconductor companies are paying more attention to this market as more chips are being used in applications that did not previously use semiconductors,” said Robbie Galoso, principal analyst for IHS. “Growth in the industrial segment has also been buoyed by a gradual acceleration in the global economy, which continues to boost industrial equipment demand, especially from the United States and China.”

The global economy was strong in 2014 and, led by the United States, it is expected to flourish through 2018. U.S. economic growth is broad-based than in other regions, with a more stabilized housing market, improved consumer finances and credit, and increased capital spending. U.S real gross domestic product (GDP) growth is expected to reach 2.4 percent in 2014, 3.1 percent in 2015 and 2.7 percent in 2016.

The United States accounted for 30.5 percent of all semiconductors used in industrial applications in 2013. China is the second largest industrial chip buyer, purchasing about 14 percent of all industrial semiconductors. Its economy will grow 7.3 percent in 2014, 6.5 percent in 2015 and 6.7 percent in 2016.

“Stronger economic growth and increased capital spending in the United States and China is good news for industrial semiconductor manufacturers because they are the leading purchasers of industrial semiconductors,” Galoso said. “A solid economy and robust industrial equipment demand will further boost sales of optical semiconductors, analog chips and discretes, which are the three largest industrial semiconductor product segments.”

LED demand shines

Revenue from optical chips for industrial applications will grow from $8.6 billion in 2013 to $15.9 billion in 2018. The optical chip segment includes LEDs for general lighting, which represented 72 percent of the optical category in 2013, and will reach 78.4 percent in 2018. Optocouplers used in motor drives in factory automation and energy distribution, conversion and storage, is the second biggest product category within optical integrated circuits (ICs).

Analog semiconductor revenue will increase from $6.7 billion 2013 to $9.9 billion in 2018, while discretes increase from $6.4 billion to $8.6 billion. The analog semiconductor segment includes voltage regulators and reference, data converters, amplifiers and comparators, and interface ICs, which are used in factory automation, motor drives, and energy conversion and storage.

Image sensors are the smallest category in the optical chip segment. These sensors are currently transitioning from charge-coupled-device (CCD) image sensors to complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensors that are widely used in security cameras, medical imaging equipment and military devices.

Industrial semiconductors with the strongest compound annual growth rates from 2013 through 2018 will include logic semiconductors at 13.4 percent, optical semiconductors at 13 percent and sensors and actuators at 10.8 percent.

Logic ICs are widely used in automation, including programmable logic controllers, digital control systems and communication and networking that extend across various markets, machine vision, and military applications.

Growth drivers

“The robust growth in demand for industrial semiconductors over the next three years will be driven by a wide range of products and segments,” Galoso said. “These products include 3D printers, factory automation products, commercial aircraft, LED lighting, digital IP cameras, climate control devices, renewable energy products, medical electronics and wireless application-specific testers.

Industrial 3D printers is a high growth category that will help drive industrial semiconductor usage in the coming years. It includes equipment used to manufacture objects through an additive process of laying down successive layers of material, until the entire object is created.

Avionics will continue to lead growth in the industrial segment. The commercial aircraft market offset the military aircraft market in the third quarter 2014. Total avionics revenue was expected to finish 2014 with 16.9 percent growth.

Led by China and the United States, the factory automation segment has grown over the past five quarters. The segment is forecast to reach 5.9 percent growth in 2014.

Marktech Optoelectronics Corp. announces the addition of a PLCC-4 and miniature ceramic package to the 650nm and 850nm Point Source LED series. Point Source LEDs are designed to deliver precise and consistent performance in the most demanding applications such as high-speed optical encoders, linear positioning, optical switch and critical sensing applications. As miniaturization continues to be the focus of new product designs, small high reliability LED packaging will be needed to match performance.

Marktech Point Source LEDs are powered by a unique LED die that produces a well-defined pattern of light similar to a “point.” These die or chips in combination with high quality optical grade glass lenses produce an extremely narrow, near parallel radiation pattern. This unobstructed, radiated beam pattern is made possible by masking the die and relocating the topside electrode. By eliminating the “dark spot” typically associated with the center of conventional LEDs, the point source LED yields superior results in critical sensing applications.

Through-hole package options for this series include high reliability hermetically sealed TO-18 and TO-46 metal cans with a variety of lensing options which produce and array of viewing angles. Devices supplied without optics are manufactured with a flat glass window allowing the designer to utilize proprietary collimating or other application specific optics to take full advantage of the undistorted beam. Vincent C Forte, Marktech CTO said, “The Point Source LED is a suitable alternative to laser diodes in short distant applications offering increased temperature range capabilities and reduced risk of discharge due to ESD.”

Marktech ceramic package LED

Researchers at Aalto University, Finland have developed a new method to implement different types of nanowires side-by-side into a single array on a single substrate. The new technique makes it possible to use different semiconductor materials for the different types of nanowires.

‘We have succeeded in combining nanowires grown by the VLS (vapor-liquid-solid) and SAE (selective-area epitaxy) techniques onto the same platform. The difference compared with studies conducted previously on the same topic is that in the dual-type array the different materials do not grow in the same nanowire, but rather as separate wires on the same substrate’, says Docent Teppo Huhtio.

The research results were published in the Nano Letters journal on 5 February 2015.

Several applications 

The new fabrication process has many phases. First, gold nanoparticles are spread on a substrate. Next, the substrate is coated with silicon oxide, into which small holes are then patterned using electron beam lithography. In the first step of growth, (SAE), nanowires grow from where the holes are located, after which the silicon oxide is removed. In the second phase different types of nanowires are grown with the help of the gold nanoparticles (VLS). The researchers used metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy reactor in which the starting materials decompose at a high temperature, forming semiconductor compounds on the substrate.

“In this way we managed to combine two growth methods into the same process,” says doctoral candidate Joona-Pekko Kakko.

“We noticed in optical reflection measurements that light couples better to this kind of combination structure. For instance, a solar cell has less reflection and better absorption of light,” Huhtio adds.

In addition to solar cells and LEDs, the researchers also see good applications in thermoelectric generators. Further processing for component applications has already begun.

Nanowires are being intensely researched, because semiconductor components that are currently in use need to be made smaller and more cost-effective. The nanowires made out of semiconductor materials are typically 1-10 micrometres in length, with diameters of 5-100 nanometres.

The future of electronics could lie in a material from its past, as researchers from The Ohio State University work to turn germanium–the material of 1940s transistors–into a potential replacement for silicon.

At the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, assistant professor of chemistry Joshua Goldberger reported progress in developing a form of germanium called germanane.

In 2013, Goldberger’s lab at Ohio State became the first to succeed at creating one-atom-thick sheet of germanane–a sheet so thin, it can be thought of as two-dimensional. Since then, he and his team have been tinkering with the atomic bonds across the top and bottom of the sheet, and creating hybrid versions of the material that incorporate other atoms such as tin.

The goal is to make a material that not only transmits electrons 10 times faster than silicon, but is also better at absorbing and emitting light–a key feature for the advancement of efficient LEDs and lasers.

“We’ve found that by tuning the nature of these bonds, we can tune the electronic structure of the material. We can increase or decrease the energy it absorbs,” Goldberger said. “So potentially we could make a material that traverses the entire electromagnetic spectrum, or absorbs different colors, depending on those bonds.”

As they create the various forms of germanane, the researchers are trying to exploit traditional silicon manufacturing methods as much as possible, to make any advancements easily adoptable by industry.

Aside from these traditional semiconductor applications, there have been numerous predictions that a tin version of the material could conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency at room temperature. The heavier tin atom allows the material to become a 2D “topological insulator,” which conducts electricity only at its edges., Goldberger explained. Such a material is predicted to occur only with specific bonds across the top and bottom surface, such as a hydroxide bond.

Goldberger’s lab has verified that this theoretical material can be chemically stable. His lab has created germanane with up to 9 percent tin atoms incorporated, and shown that tin atoms have strong preference to bond to hydroxide above and below the sheet. His group is currently developing routes towards preparing the pure tin 2D derivatives.

Graphene, a single-atom-thick lattice of carbon atoms, is often touted as a replacement for silicon in electronic devices due to its extremely high conductivity and unbeatable thinness. But graphene is not the only two-dimensional material that could play such a role.

University of Pennsylvania researchers have made an advance in manufacturing one such material, molybdenum disulphide. By growing flakes of the material around “seeds” of molybdenum oxide, they have made it easier to control the size, thickness and location of the material.

Unlike graphene, molybdenum disulfide has an energy band gap, meaning its conductivity can be turned on and off. Such a trait is critical for semiconductor devices used in computing. Another difference is that molybdenum disulphide emits light, meaning it could be used in applications like LEDs, self-reporting sensors and optoelectronics.

The study was led by A. T. Charlie Johnson, professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences, and includes members of his lab, Gang Hee Han, Nicholas Kybert, Carl Naylor and Jinglei Ping. Also contributing to the study was Ritesh Agarwal, professor of materials science and engineering in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science; members of his lab, Bumsu Lee and Joohee Park; and Jisoo Kang, a master’s student in Penn’s nanotechnology program. They collaborated with researchers from South Korea’s Sungkyunkwan University, Si Young Lee and Young Hee Lee.

Their study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

“Everything we do with regular electronics we’d like to be able to do with two-dimensional materials,” Johnson said. “Graphene has one set of properties that make it very attractive for electronics, but it lacks this critical property, being able to turn on and off. Molybdenum disulphide gives you that.”

Graphene’s ultra-high conductivity means that it can move electrons more quickly than any known material, but that is not the only quality that matters for electronics. For the transistors that form the basis for modern computing technology, being able to stop the flow of electrons is also critical.

“Molybdenum disulphide is not as conductive as graphene,” Naylor said, “but it has a very high on/off ratio. We need 1’s and 0’s to do computation; graphene can only give us 1’s and .5’s.”

Other research groups have been able to make small flakes of molybdenum disulphide the same way graphene was first made, by exfoliating it, or peeling off atomically thin layers from the bulk material. More recently, other researchers have adopted another technique from graphene manufacture, chemical vapor deposition, where the molybdenum and sulfur are heated into gasses and left to settle and crystalize on a substrate.

The problem with these methods is that the resulting flakes form in a scattershot way.

“Between hunting down the flakes,” said Kybert, “and making sure they’re the right size and thickness, it would take days to make a single measurement of their properties”

The Penn team’s advance was in developing a way to control where the flakes form in the chemical vapor deposition method, by “seeding” the substrate with a precursor.

“We start by placing down a small amount of molybdenum oxide in the locations we want,” Naylor said, “then we flow in sulfur gas. Under the right conditions, those seeds react with sulfur and flakes of molybdenum disulphide being to grow.”

“There’s finesse involved in optimizing the growth conditions,” Johnson said, “but we’re exerting more control, moving the material in the direction of being able to make complicated systems. Because we grow it where we want it, we can make devices more easily. We have all of the other parts of the transistors in a separate layer that we snap down on top of the flakes, making dozens and potentially even hundreds, of devices at once. Then we were able to observe that we made transistors that turned on and off like they were supposed to and devices that emit light like they are supposed to.”

Being able to match up the location of the molybdenum disulphide flakes with corresponding electronics allowed the researchers to skip a step they must take when making graphene-based devices. There, graphene is grown in large sheets and then cut down to size, a process that adds to the risk of damaging contamination.

Future work on these molybdenum disulphide devices will complement the research team’s research on graphene-based biosensors; rather than outputting the detection of some molecule to a computer, molybdenum disulfide-based sensors could directly report a binding event through a change in the light they emit.

This research also represents first steps that can be applied toward fabricating a new family of two-dimensional materials.

“We can replace the molybdenum with tungsten and the sulfur with selenium,” Naylor said, “and just go down the periodic table from there. We can imagine growing all of these different materials in the places we choose and taking advantages of all of their different properties.”

Marktech Optoelectronics, a supplier of visible and infrared LED products, introduces its latest series of high reliability metal can packages, which incorporate Cree’s LED die. Cree combines highly efficient InGaN materials with proprietary substrates to deliver superior performance for high intensity LEDs. Markech’s metal can packages, offered in different heights and lensing options, are available for single or multichip die configurations depending on the application needs.

This series of hermetically sealed TO-5, 18 and 39 packages are offered in Flat or Domed lensed options. The high lumen output of the Cree die combined with Marktech’s precise die centering capabilities make these LEDs ideal for illumination in machine vision, scanning, and medical inspection equipment.

“The die that Cree manufactures, available in a number of chip sizes, wavelengths and power outputs, are extremely stable at low or high currents, allowing equipment manufacturers a range of choices for illumination or backlighting designs” says Steve Hubert, Marktech’s product manager for Cree products.

Precise die centering within packaging is a key component to critical illumination, machine vision, and scanning applications. As illuminated surfaces continue to decrease in size, accurate detection of the scanned area relies on the correct light position.

Marktech’s series of high reliability metal can packages, offered in Blue, Green, White, and Amber colors, boast high lumen output and efficiency and can be customized into single or multichip LEDs, light arrays or miniature light rings.

Cree and Marktech will be displaying LED die products, packaged components, and chip arrays at the upcoming Photonics West show held in San Francisco from February 10-12 in booth 616.

Now established in UV curing, UV LED technology will find growth opportunities in disinfection and purification and new applications by 2017/2018. Under its new technology and market analysis entitled “UV LED – Technology, Manufacturing and Application Trends”, Yole Développement (Yole) the “More Than Moore” market research, technology and strategy consulting company, reviews and details the traditional UV lamp business and its current transition to UV LED technology. Indeed industry players confirm their interest for cheaper and more compact technology.

UV LED market

Yole’s report presents a comprehensive review of all UV lamp applications including a deep analysis of UV curing, UV purification and disinfection and analytical instruments. It highlights the UV LED working principle, market structure, UV LED market drivers and associated challenges and characteristics, the total accessible market for UV LEDs. In this report, Yole’s analysts also detail the market volume and size metrics for traditional UV lamps and UV LEDs over the period 2008-2019, with splits by application for each technology.

Thanks to their compactness and low cost of ownership, UV LED technology continues to make its way in the booming UV curing business, through replacement of incumbent technologies such as mercury lamps.

“Thanks to this an overall UV LED market that represented only ~$20M in 2008 grew to~$90M in 2014, at a compound annual growth rate of 28.5 percent,” explains Pars Mukish, Business Unit Manager, LED activities at Yole. Such growth is likely to continue as LED-powered UV curing spreads across ink, adhesive and coating industries. And Pars Mukish from Yole, explains: “By 2017/2018, the UV LED market should also see part of its revenues coming from UVC disinfection and purification applications, for which device performance is not yet sufficient. The UV LED business is therefore expected to grow from ~$90M in 2014 to ~$520M in 2019.”This market’s evaluation takes into account only standard applications, where UV LEDs replace UV lamps.
Pars Mukish adds: “The potential is even greater, if we consider UV LEDs’ ability to enable new concepts in areas like general lighting, horticultural lighting, biomedical devices, and in fighting hospital-acquired infections (HAIs).”

Even this is just scratching the surface of UV LEDs’ real potential. While the new applications do not yet have a strong impact on market size, Yole expects them to possibly count for nearly 10 percent of the total UV LED market size by 2019.

In 2008, Yole started its investigation on the UV LEDs technologies. The consulting company highlights: “Less than ten companies were developing and manufacturing these devices at this time.” Since then, more than 50 companies have entered the playground, over 30 of these between 2012 and 2014, mostly attracted by the high margin when the overcapacity and strong price pressure from the “LED TV crisis” had taken its toll on the visible LED industry. These were mostly small and medium enterprises.

And recently some big companies from the visible LED industry – namely Philips Lumileds and LG Innotek – have also secured a foothold in the UV LED business. According to Yole’s analysis, the entry of these two giants will help to further develop the industry, the market and the technology based on their strong experience of the visible LED industry.

A good example of this is that they have made a nearly full transition of their process to 6” sapphire substrates. “Compared to a 2” based process, this can provide at least a 30 percent overall productivity increase, which would help to further reduce manufacturing cost…” comments Pars Mukish.

Cambridge Nanotherm today announced that Ewald Braith has joined the board as a Non-Exec Director. Cambridge Nanotherm has already started to make significant inroads into the LED market with its innovative nano-ceramic thermal management solutions for LEDs and other electronics. Ewald has now been brought on board to lend his considerable expertise to aiding the company in its growth plans.

“We’re really excited to have Ewald on board,” commented Ralph Weir, CEO. “Ewald combines high-level strategic nous with a deep knowledge of electronic design. He’s a big-hitter in terms of his achievements in the power electronics and telco markets, and exposure to semiconductor technologies and vertical markets. Additionally, throughout his career, Ewald has led aggressive expansion into overseas markets. This is a world-class hire, and clearly indicates the level at which Cambridge Nanotherm is now operating.”

“Cambridge Nanotherm is a company with a passion for ‘growth’ and ‘innovation’,” added Braith. “I am joining the team at a very exciting point, both in terms of the company’s growth and the growth of the large scale industry and market opportunities. The markets for LED technologies are growing rapidly, and manufacturers are eager for effective ways to improve the competitiveness of their products. With its thermal management solutions Cambridge Nanotherm can and should be at the core of this opportunity. I look forward to working with the team to continue to build on the momentum already achieved, as well as helping to drive greater penetration of key high growth markets such as the US and Asia.”

Ewald has worked in a variety of high-profile companies over the last thirty years, with a focus on the telecoms and power semiconductor markets. These include Zytec, Artesyn Technologies and Emerson Network Power, as well as establishing his own consulting firm. Ewald has most recently been CEO at Detego, a RFID software solutions and services provider for the fashion industry, and he is also a member of the board at Salcomp PLC.

Fairchild, a global supplier of high-performance power semiconductor solutions, today announced the FL7734 Phase-Cut Dimmable Single- Stage LED Driver, a highly integrated LED controller solution for low-cost, and highly reliable LED lighting solutions from 5 W to 30 W. The FL7734 enables designers to quickly achieve great light quality designs with high dimmer compatibility while integrating full power factor correction (PFC) circuitry to meet power factor (PF) and total harmonic distortion (THD) requirements.

The FL7734 solution uses Fairchild’s unique active dimmer driving technology to eliminate visible flicker or shimmer symptoms and deliver over 90 percent dimmer compatibility with a variety of leading edge, trailing edge and digital dimmers from a wide range of manufacturers. The solution fully meets NEMA SSL 7A-2013 & ENERGY STAR standards and provides a programmable dimming curve and input current management flexibility.

“The FL7734 driver simplifies LED light designs with broad dimmer compatibility,” said James Lee, technical marketing manager at Fairchild. “LED bulb and phase-cut dimmer suppliers are different, so a good phase-cut dimmable bulb has to operate well with many different dimmers. We developed the FL7734 with this in mind.”

The FL7734 is a Flyback (or Buck-Boost) Pulse-Width Modulator (PWM) controller that uses an advanced Primary-Side Regulation (PSR) technique, which minimizes the external components required for implementation and therefore lowers BOM. To meet stringent LED brightness control requirements, the FL7734 uses Fairchild’s innovative TRUECURRENT PSR technology for tight constant current (CC) variation with a tolerance of less than ±1 percent in the wide line voltage range.

Like the FL7733A announced last November at Electronica, the FL7734 can be used in a wide variety of lamps including GU10, candel lights, A19 and PAR30/38 bulbs, down and flat lights, and indoor and outdoor lights. Both solutions deliver a highly precise CC control with better than 1% variation over the entire universal line input operating range.

To meet safety regulations and ensure long-term reliability, the FL7734 device adds comprehensive protection features including dual overvoltage protection for both open-VS and open-VDD conditions, output diode short, and open/short protection for current sense resistor and every pin of the control IC. It also features open-LED, short-LED and over-temperature shutdown protections.

The FL7734 is available in 16-pin Small-Outline Package (SOP).

University of Toronto engineers study first single crystal perovskites for new applications Engineers have shone new light on an emerging family of solar-absorbing materials that could clear the way for cheaper and more efficient solar panels and LEDs.

The materials, called perovskites, are particularly good at absorbing visible light, but had never been thoroughly studied in their purest form: as perfect single crystals.

Using a new technique, researchers grew large, pure perovskite crystals and studied how electrons move through the material as light is converted to electricity.

Led by Professor Ted Sargent of The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto and Professor Osman Bakr of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), the team used a combination of laser-based techniques to measure selected properties of the perovskite crystals. By tracking down the rapid motion of electrons in the material, they have been able to determine the diffusion length–how far electrons can travel without getting trapped by imperfections in the material–as well as mobility–how fast the electrons can move through the material. Their work was published this week in the journal Science.

“Our work identifies the bar for the ultimate solar energy-harvesting potential of perovskites,” says Riccardo Comin, a post-doctoral fellow with the Sargent Group. “With these materials it’s been a race to try to get record efficiencies, and our results indicate that progress is slated to continue without slowing down..”

In recent years, perovskite efficiency has soared to certified efficiencies of just over 20 per cent, beginning to approach the present-day performance of commercial-grade silicon-based solar panels mounted in Spanish deserts and on Californian roofs.

“In their efficiency, perovskites are closely approaching conventional materials that have already been commercialized,” says Valerio Adinolfi, a PhD candidate in the Sargent Group and co-first author on the paper. “They have the potential to offer further progress on reducing the cost of solar electricity in light of their convenient manufacturability from a liquid chemical precursor.”

The study has obvious implications for green energy, but may also enable innovations in lighting. Think of a solar panel made of perovskite crystals as a fancy slab of glass: light hits the crystal surface and gets absorbed, exciting electrons in the material. Those electrons travel easily through the crystal to electrical contacts on its underside, where they are collected in the form of electric current. Now imagine the sequence in reverse–power the slab with electricity, inject electrons, and release energy as light. A more efficient electricity-to-light conversion means perovskites could open new frontiers for energy-efficient LEDs.

Parallel work in the Sargent Group focuses on improving nano-engineered solar-absorbing particles called colloidal quantum dots. “Perovskites are great visible-light harvesters, and quantum dots are great for infrared,” says Professor Sargent. “The materials are highly complementary in solar energy harvesting in view of the sun’s broad visible and infrared power spectrum.”

“In future, we will explore the opportunities for stacking together complementary absorbent materials,” says Dr. Comin. “There are very promising prospects for combining perovskite work and quantum dot work for further boosting the efficiency.”