Category Archives: LEDs

June 14, 2007 – Luminescent Technologies Inc. says it has raised $9 million in a new round of financing, led by new investor Adams Capital Management along with existing investor Sevin Rosen Funds. The funds will be used to continue driving adoption of the company’s inverse lithography technology (ILT), which it is touting as an alternative to optical proximity correction (OPC), offering better pattern fidelity and broader lithography process windows.

With the new financing in place, CEO David Fried is stepping down, to be replaced by EVP of products Moris Kori, whom Fried recruited from Applied Materials where he held several leadership positions, including VP and GM of the company’s mask lithography and inspection product groups; VP/GM of metal interconnect and liner/barrier product groups; and chief marketing officer for metal deposition and etch product groups.

“Dave has accomplished what he set out to do: he led the company to a successful product introduction, secured financing from a strong outside investor, and brought in a new CEO who will further establish ILT as the winning patterning solution,” said John Oxaal, general partner at Sevin Rosen Funds, in a statement.

At this year’s SPIE Advanced Lithography Symposium in February, Luminescent presented full-chip results its customers have been getting for 45nm and 32nm contact layer patterns (140nm pitch and 110nm-100nm pitch, respectively), using its inverse lithography technology (ILT) in 45nm and 32nm development efforts.

June 7, 2007 – The market for lithography photomasks continued to slow in 2006, reaching $2.2 billion (5.4% growth), but should pick up again in 2007 thanks to increased demand from the logic segment which uses more and higher-priced masks, according to a report from The Information Market.

Photomask sales have slowed for two years, since 18% in 2004 and 8% growth in 2005, loosely tracking trends in semiconductor sales, though photomask demand is driven more by design activity than semiconductor sales volumes, noted Robert Castellano, president of the market research firm.

This year Castellano expects about an 8% increase in photomask sales, as the impact of a big slowdown in the memory market (+2% vs. 21% in 2006) is offset by more demand from the logic segment (+7% this year), which uses more masks and at a higher price, he noted.

Toppan led the worldwide merchant market in 2006 with a 40.4% share, followed by Dainippon Printing with 32.9%. Best growth among merchant providers went to Compugraphics (14%), vs. 9% for DNP and 6% for Toppan. US-based Photronics actually saw sales slip by 2%.

Regionally, Japan and Asia each saw their contributions to the worldwide photomask market grow by about 10%, together accounting for 77% of the total market. The US dropped 9% to $307 million, the firm noted.

May 16, 2007 — EAST HILLS, NY — As part of its global initiative to align with customers worldwide, Pall Corporation today inaugurated its newest Life Sciences Centre of Excellence in Bangalore, India. The center will drive process optimization innovations for the global life sciences market to meet the evolving opportunities and challenges of this fast-growing industry throughout Asia.

The new center includes a state-of-the-art proteomics laboratory to help customers speed the drug discovery process. It also houses a validation laboratory and a training facility with specialty experts to support Indian and regional customers as they increasingly enter the stringently regulated drug export market. India was strategically chosen as the location for Pall’s new Centre of Excellence in Asia because of the country’s highly regarded reputation in life sciences spanning biopharmaceutical research, development, and production.

Additionally, India’s diverse market opportunities coupled with a large pool of qualified scientists and engineers provide an ideal climate for fuelling innovation and growth. “Pall’s growth in the Asian life sciences market is a reflection of our focus on this important region and our continuing commitment to undertake several customer-centric initiatives there,” says Roberto Perez, president, Pall Life Sciences Worldwide. “The new Centre of Excellence will be instrumental in helping the life sciences industry in India and throughout the region apply the latest technologies and services to their operations, so they have the optimal tools and expertise to bring new and innovative drugs to market more efficiently.”

As Indian-based companies address the health care needs of their nation’s billion-plus population and also expand into the global marketplace, they constantly seek new approaches to broaden and improve their drug pipeline and their ability to produce them to a world-class standard. The new center will provide the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and discovery markets throughout the region with a full range of total fluid management solutions to help them achieve their goals. Led by a highly specialized team of professionals, the new center joins other Pall Life Sciences Centres of Excellence throughout Europe and the Western Hemisphere in bringing together the latest technologies with process optimization knowledge and expertise.

With the opening of the center Pall Life Sciences also expands its customer technical support system. Customers anywhere in the world will be able to have immediate access (24 hours, 7 days a week) to Pall scientists and technical experts. “The success of our customers depends on their ability to carry out all stages of drug development — research, discovery and full-scale production — efficiently and cost-effectively,” says Vinay Joban, general manager, Pall BioPharmaceuticals India. “The new center provides the region with a complete range of services to support their operations from upstream through downstream while also facilitating their ability to comply with increasingly rigorous global requirements.”

The biopharmaceutical industry throughout Asia is experiencing a major surge in activity. The Indian pharmaceutical industry is one of the world’s largest, ranking 4th in terms of volume. According to Opportunities in Indian Pharma Sector (July 2006), India holds US$6 billion of the $550 billion global pharmaceutical industry, an annual increase of 10 percent compared with the 7 percent annual growth of the overall world market. The biotechnology market is also booming in India and is expected to continue on a fast pace with the support of the government through its comprehensive national biotechnology policy. Indian Biotechnology Market Outlook (February 2007) reports that the Indian biotechnology industry has grown 28.09 percent from 2005, and is likely to touch the US$5 billion mark by the end of 2010.

“Our new Centre of Excellence is the latest demonstration of Pall’s long-term commitment to grow and invest in Asia and align with our customers worldwide,” says Vinay Gupta, managing director and head of Pall Life Sciences in India. “It is key to our global strategy of working as a partner with the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and the academic research community to provide them with a full range of total process management solutions for improved optimization.”

About Pall in India and Asia
Pall Corporation has been present in India for more than two decades and was incorporated as Pall India in 1996. Headquartered in Mumbai, the company serves both life sciences and industrial markets where it provides total fluid management solutions for a broad range of critical applications to a diverse customer base. With staff strength of more than 200 people drawn from various disciplines and expertise, Pall continues to enhance and expand its operations in India. Currently, plans are underway to set up a new center in Pune to provide complete engineering solutions to the global market for Pall’s housings and systems portfolio. In addition to its operations in India, Pall serves the Asia-Pacific region with facilities in China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

About Pall Corporation
Pall Corporation is the global leader in the rapidly growing field of filtration, separation and purification. Pall is organized into two businesses: life sciences and industrial. These businesses provide leading-edge products to meet the demanding needs of customers in biotechnology, pharmaceutical, transfusion medicine, energy, electronics, municipal and industrial water purification, aerospace, transportation and broad industrial markets. Total revenues for fiscal year 2006 were $2.0 billion. The company headquarters is in East Hills, New York, with extensive operations throughout the world. For more information visit Pall at www.pall.com.

May 16, 2007 — /PRNewswire/ — BETHLEHEM, PA — Digestive Care, Inc (DCI) announced today that it is quadrupling the capacity of its manufacturing, research and development facility in order to meet the growing demand for PANCRECARB(R) (pancrelipase), a pancreatic enzyme for the treatment of pancreatic insufficiency.

“This expansion is essential to ensuring that there is ample supply of PANCRECARB(R) for patients whose lives are dependent on the availability of this medication,” said Dr. Tibor Sipos, president and founder of DCI. “Our continued success is a result of PANCRECARB(R)’s market acceptance and an outstanding multidisciplinary team entirely dedicated to providing support to healthcare providers and patients.”

The PANCRECARB(R) expanded manufacturing and research facility, located in Bethlehem, PA, will also enable DCI to research, develop, and manufacture other therapeutic products, including those for managing digestive disorders associated with cystic fibrosis and cholestatic liver diseases.

About PANCRECARB(R)
PANCRECARB(R) is an exocrine pancreatic insufficiency drug product. It is the only enteric coated and bicarbonate buffered pancreatic enzyme which is protected by several U.S. patents. In April 2004, the FDA determined that prescription exocrine pancreatic insufficiency drug products are medically necessary and, accordingly, allowed the drug manufacturers four years (April 2008) to obtain approved new drug applications. PANCRECARB(R) is on track to fulfill these requirements.

About Digestive Care, Inc.
DCI is dedicated to developing unique pharmaceutical products to alleviate complications and symptoms of gastrointestinal disorders. DCI was founded in 1990. The company holds 15 U.S. and foreign patents and has a national distribution network. The Company’s technology is based on the ability to commercially develop unique drug delivery systems for delivering bioactive molecules to their target site. DCI’s research into the controlled delivery of gastric acid resistant digestive enzymes and buffered bile acids through micro encapsulation led to the development of the highly successful drug product, PANCRECARB(R) (pancrelipase).

Source: Digestive Care, Inc.

Contact:
Maggi Campbell of Digestive Care, Inc.,
Tel:+1-610-882-5950 (office)
Email: [email protected]
Web site: http://www.digestivecare.com/

MIL-STD-883-certified hermetic, the molded ceramic surface-mount packages are low profile and target aerospace, avionics, and telecom applications, packaging LEDs, MEMS, and optical devices.

June 4, 2007 – GenISys GmbH, JEOL Ltd., and Cornell U. are partnering to develop advanced technologies for direct-write e-beam data preparation and electron process correction technologies for nanometer-range structures.

Under the partnership, GenISys will optimize its Layout Beamer data prep and PEC software for JEOL’s high-end e-beam litho systems. Cornell’s Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility will provide guidance for both implementation and development strategies.

The group says work has been in progress for six months focusing on 10nm-or less structures, which are fabricated with a few pulses of the e-beam writer. Results of the work have led to upgrading the GenISys software with an algorithm to correct printing artifacts of the discrete writing grid, and future versions will account for additional machine and process effects.

“Users of e-beam direct write need urgent solutions for advanced data preparation and correction for nanostructure applications,” said Ulrich Hofmann, founder and general manager of GenISys, in a statement. “These organizations are pioneering the state of the art in nano-fabrication and provide the ideal forum for further development and extension of Layout Beamer. The high flexibility, responsiveness and unique combination of software and e-beam application knowledge will enable GenISys to deliver the solutions the market is waiting for.”

“With more than 700 users coming to our facility annually, we do a vast amount of e-beam data preparation, and this collaboration will help us provide better service and results, as well as learn more about the future of the process,” added Rob Ilic, research associate and user program manager of Cornell’s Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility.

June 1, 2007 – Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), with help from the U. of Maryland and Howard U., have devised a fabrication method that creates tiny ultraviolet light-emitting diodes from nanowires, and NIST says the technique is “well-suited” for scaling to commercial production.

Direct bandgap group III-nitride (AlN/GaN/InN) semiconducting nanowires are seen as promising candidates for small LEDs to be used in sensors, data storage, and optical communications. But making nanowire LEDs typically involves a series of manufacturing techniques that don’t easily translate into commercial production — i.e., crossing n-GaN and p-GaN nanowires, crossing n-GaN and n-Si nanowires, n-GaN core and InGaN/Gan/p-AlGaN/p-GaN multishell structures — “tedious nanowire manipulation methods,” NIST noted — and a series of one-by-one fabrication techniques such as electron-beam lithography and focused ion beam etching.

NIST claims the new GaN LEDs emit a 365nm light wavelength with 25nm full width half maximum FWHM at an applied voltage of 50µA, “squarely in the UV range.” Higher emissions of 385nm were obtained with 65µA injection levels, though possibly due to GaN-oxide interface related recombinations. The UV LEDs also showed “excellent thermal stability” up to 750 degrees C and operational stability after two hours of continuous operation at room temperature.

“The present technique can be applied to other nanowire systems, and is suitable for applications requiring large area nanoscale light sources,” NIST said in its paper. The work from NIST and university researchers was published in the May 29 edition of Applied Physics Letters.

Pall Corporation has inaugurated its newest Life Sciences Centre of Excellence in Bangalore, India, which is intended to drive innovations in global life sciences processes throughout Asia.

The new center includes a state-of-the-art proteomics laboratory to help customers speed the drug discovery process. It also houses a validation laboratory and a training facility with specialty experts to support Indian and regional customers as they enter the highly regulated drug export market. Pall says India was strategically chosen as the location for the Centre of Excellence in Asia “because of the country’s highly regarded reputation in life sciences.”


Pall’s Bangalore Life Sciences Centre of Excellence houses a state-of-the-art proteomics laboratory designed to help customers speed the discovery process, as well as a validation laboratory to assist pharmaceutical companies in meeting stringent regulatory requirements. Photo courtesy of Pall.
Click here to enlarge image

The company says the center will provide the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and discovery markets throughout the region with a full range of total fluid management solutions to help them achieve their goals. Led by a specialized team of professionals, the new facility joins other Pall Life Sciences Centres of Excellence throughout Europe and the Western Hemisphere in bringing together the latest technologies with process optimization knowledge and expertise.

Pall Life Sciences is also expanding its customer technical support system with the center’s opening. Customers worldwide will have immediate access to Pall scientists and technical experts. “The success of our customers depends on their ability to carry out all stages of drug development-research, discovery, and full-scale production-efficiently and cost-effectively,” says Vinay Joban, general manager, Pall BioPharmaceuticals India. “The new center provides the region with a complete range of services to support their operations from upstream through downstream while also facilitating their ability to comply with increasingly rigorous global requirements.”

The biopharmaceutical industry throughout Asia is experiencing a major surge in activity. The Indian pharmaceutical industry reportedly ranks fourth in terms of volume. According to Opportunities in Indian Pharma Sector (July 2006), India accounts for US$6 billion of the $550 billion global pharmaceutical industry, an annual increase of 10 percent compared with the 7 percent annual growth of the overall world market. The Indian biotechnology market is also growing, supported by the government’s comprehensive national biotechnology policy. Indian Biotechnology Market Outlook (February 2007) reports that the Indian biotechnology industry has grown 28.09 percent from 2005, and is likely to touch the $5 billion mark by the end of 2010.

May 29, 2007 – Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), with help from the U. of Maryland and Howard U., have devised a fabrication method that creates tiny ultraviolet light-emitting diodes from nanowires, and NIST says the technique is “well-suited” for scaling to commercial production.

Direct bandgap group III-nitride (AlN/GaN/InN) semiconducting nanowires are seen as promising candidates for small LEDs to be used in sensors, data storage, and optical communications. But making nanowire LEDs typically involves a series of manufacturing techniques that don’t easily translate into commercial production — i.e., crossing n-GaN and p-GaN nanowires, crossing n-GaN and n-Si nanowires, n-GaN core and InGaN/Gan/p-AlGaN/p-GaN multishell structures — “tedious nanowire manipulation methods,” NIST noted — and a series of one-by-one fabrication techniques such as electron-beam lithography and focused ion beam etching.

For their study, the researchers grew a 4µm-thick p-GaN epilayer via hydride vapor-phase epitaxy on a c-plane sapphire substrate (Mg was the p-type dopant (hole concentration = 2.5 x 1018 cm3), onto which was first deposited a 65nm thick SiO2 layer using PECVD, then a Ti/Al/Ti layer (thicknesses 30-100-30nm) using e-beam evaporation. Photolithography and wet etching yielded 300µm-dia circular, insulated metal contact pads with 500µm pitch on the surface of the p-GaN epilayer. A suspension of GaN nanowires in isopropanol was then dispersed onto the substrate with the insulated metal contact pads; the nanowires were aligned dielectrophoretically by applying a 10 V peak to peak, 1 kHz sinusoidal voltage to one post.

A second photolitho/etch step resulted in 250µm-diam. circular contacts on top of the first level contacts; deposited Ti/Al/Ti/Au was followed by a lift-off to form the top contact to the nanowire. For contact to the p-GaN layer, a Ni/Au (30nm/30nm) layer was deposited at the four corners of the sample by a shadow mask.

NIST claims the new GaN LEDs emit a 365nm light wavelength with 25nm full width half maximum FWHM at an applied voltage of 50µA, “squarely in the UV range.” Higher emissions of 385nm were obtained with 65µA injection levels, though possibly due to GaN-oxide interface related recombinations. The UV LEDs also showed “excellent thermal stability” up to 750 degrees C and operational stability after two continuous hours of operation at room temperature.

“The present technique can be applied to other nanowire systems, and is suitable for applications requiring large area nanoscale light sources,” NIST said, in its paper. Using passivations such as AlN with higher dielectric constant could improve the extraction efficiencies, the group added.

The work from NIST and university researchers was been published in the May 29 edition of Applied Physics Letters.

IMAGE BELOW: Schematic representation of the process of aligning and fabricating n-GaN nanowire/p-GaN epilayer LED. a) deposition of SiO2 and Ti/Al/Ti layers; b) nanowires aligned on the pads and GaN layer, forming the p-n junction; c) more SiO2 deposited via PECVD; d) 250µm contacts built on the first level contacts, followed by Ti/Al/Ti/Au and Ni/Au deposited layers. (Source: NIST)

(May 25, 2007) ROCHESTER, NY and TAINAN, Taiwan &#151 Eastman Kodak Company (Rochester) will cross license its active matrix organic LED (OLED) intellectual property (IP) and manufacturing processes to Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) and its subsidiary Chi Mei EL (CMEL), both based in the South Taiwan Science Park (Tainan). CMEL expects to use the technology for small-panel mobile displays.