SatCon Secures Order for its Inverters for Photovoltaic Installation
CompoundSemi News StaffMay 27, 2008...SatCon Technology, a power electronics company based in Boston, Massachusetts USA, reported receiving a purchase order for a 10MW electrical package from a confidential project developer for a roof mount PV installation in Spain. SatCon said the order is for twenty, five hundred kilowatt (20 x 500kW) PowerGate inverters, photovoltaic array combiner boxes, PV View Plus inverter monitoring, and systems. The PowerGate inverters to be supplied were certified to CE standards with the assistance of TUV, a European certification body, on March 31st. Internacional Master Technology SL, SatCon's partner in Spain, project supporter, will reportedly help to manage the project. SatCon says it expects to fill the order over the next three months. SatCon explained that its PowerGate inverters are used to generate distributed electrical power from alternative energy sources such as photovolatics. The power that the inverter generates must be AC to be compatible with the electric power grid
"We are pleased to support this Confidential Project in Spain with the supply of SatCon PowerGate inverters, selected for their reliability of operation which is critical to successful operation of photovoltaic power systems of this size," said Clemens van Zeyl, President of SatCon's Power Systems Division. "Backing up our commitment to the project developer, we will be expanding our operations in Spain and monitoring the inverters from our facilities to ensure optimal performance." Advanced lighting systems completes led lighting of mississippi bridge
advanced lighting systems, a nexxus lighting partner company based in sauk centre, minnesota usa, has completed the lighting for the norbert f. beckey bridge in muscatine, iowa. the >SatCon News Release May 27, 2008...Columbia University Professor Emerita, Gertrude Neumark Rothschild again appears to be on the winning side as another group of companies agrees to settle with her in her patent dispute against 31 companies brought before the U.S. International Trade Commission. Two Goliaths of consumer electronics, Sony Corp. and Sany Electric Co. Ltd., and lesser known companies, Lucky Light and Exceed, have reportedly agreed to license the patented technology from Rothschild. The technology is a basic component in the production of Blu-ray video players, violet laser diodes, violet LEDs, mobile phones, and digital cameras. Details of the agreements were not released. Seoul Semiconductor Co. Ltd, a maker of LEDs, and Taiwan's Everlight Electronics Co. Ltd. signed licensing agreements with Professor Neumark Rothschild. According to her legal council, Professor Neumark Rothschild conducted groundbreaking research in the 1980s and 1990s into the light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes crucial to a many consumer electronics products.
While the Rothschild has made significant progress in the lawsuit, the fight is far from over. The Professor Emerita’s complaint to the ITC seeks to block the imports of infringing products, including video players using Blu-ray format, Motorola Razr phones, and Hitachi camcorders, as well as products containing blue, green, violet, ultraviolet, and white light emitting diodes and laser diodes. Other companies named in the suit reportedly include Hitachi Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., LG Electronics Inc., Nokia Corp., Samsung Group, Sharp Corp. Sony Ericsson Mobile and Toshiba Corp. Dreier LLP News Release Content continues for LIGHTimes SecondPage members... Taiwan Start-up Ubilux Orders Aixtron MOCVD Systems
CompoundSemi News StaffMay 27, 2008...Ubilux, a an LED making optoelectronics startup of Taiwan, has reportedly ordered several Aixtron Planetary Reactors and Close Coupled Showerhead (CCS) Crius systems. Aixtron says it will deliver these in stages until the end of the year. Ubilux recently had held the groundbreaking ceremony for its new LED production fab which is planned to be operational within six months. Aixtron says that Ubilux will use its new reactors to help manufacture of ultra-high brightness (UHB) LEDs using compound semiconductors including AlInGaP for red, yellow LEDS and GaN for blue and green LEDs.
Dr. Henry Chen, president of Ubilux commented, “My colleagues and I on the Ubilux board together with our investors have ambitious plans for success in LEDs. We have our sights set on the booming market for solid-state backlighting applications including digital cameras, mobile phones, LCD monitors and televisions. Aixtron has the best reputation for equipment, service and process know-how so we chose to equip ourselves with multiple Aixtron systems knowing that together we will proceed rapidly to production.” Aixtron News Release Molecular Imprints Completes $12.9 Million Financing
CompoundSemi News StaffMay 21, 2008...Molecular Imprints, Inc. of Austin, Texas USA, a pioneer in volume production nanopatterning systems, announced the successful completion of $12.9 million in financing. Investors in this round include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Tokyo Electron Venture Capital, Wafra Investment Advisory Group, KT Venture Group, Alloy Ventures, and Motorola Ventures. The company says that the latest funding combined with investments from customer jointdevelopment programs will enable further enhancement of its product portfolio and expansion of its operations to support rising industry demand for its nanopatterning systems.
This latest investment brings the total amount raised for the development and commercialization of Molecular Imprint's innovative Step and Flash Imprint Lithography (S-FIL) technology to $91 million. This total includes $73 million in strategic and venture capital financing, $15 million from federal government agencies, such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and $3 million from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. Molecular Imprints reports that it has made significant progress in several markets such as: semiconductors, hard disk drives (HDDs), and high-brightness light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Molecular Imprints News Release Tower Semiconductor to Acquire Jazz Semiconductor Subsidiary, Jazz Technologies
CompoundSemi News StaffMay 21, 2008...Tower Semiconductors of Migdal Hemek, Israel, an independent specialty wafer foundry, and Jazz Technologies have signed a definitive agreement in which Tower Semiconductors will purchase all of the outstanding shares of Jazz Technologies. The acquisition will be a stock-for-stock transaction in which the fully diluted shares of Tower Semiconductor total about $40 million based on Tower Semiconductor’s closing stock price on May 19, 2008. Each share of Jazz Technologies common stock will reportedly be converted to 1.8 shares of Tower Semiconductor stock. The total value of the transaction, including net debt, is approximately $169 million. The combined company will reportedly bring together Tower’s strength in CMOS image sensor, non-volatile memory (NVM) and RF CMOS with Jazz’s expertise in mixed signal, power management (CMOS and BCD) and RF (RF CMOS, SiGe and BiCMOS).
Additionally Tower says that it will now have operational facilities spanning the globe (United States, Israel, and China).
“The acquisition of Jazz is an excellent strategic fit for Tower – it creates economies of scale which allows for improved margins and strongly complements our specialty process offering, transforming us into the leading specialty pure-play foundry,” said Russell Ellwanger, CEO of Tower. “We are confident that we will realize significant benefits and synergies, including a comprehensive process portfolio which expands our addressable market and fuels a growing and more diversified customer base with highly differentiated product platforms.” Tower Semiconductor News Release Avago Technologies Announces RF Packaging Advance with WaferCap Technology
CompoundSemi News StaffMay 21, 2008...Avago of San Jose, California USA announced a significant advance in packaging technology. The company contends that the advance brings together miniaturization and high frequency performance. Avago says its WaferCap is the industry’s first semiconductor-based chip scale packaging (CSP) technology. The company notes that it has the potential to reach the 100 GHz frequency range for a SMT packaging, but WaferCap CSP has the same dimensions as an 0402 component. For this reason, Avago says that the technology can reduce the amount of PCB space an RF device occupies by over 50 percent. Avago says its WaferCap CSP technology allows high frequency devices to be batch packaged cost effectively using standard semiconductor processing techniques.
Avago points out that with WaferCap, the air cavity created under the “lid” and immediately above the circuit makes it possible to achieve higher frequency ranges. Also the company says that the use of vias removes the need for costly and performance limiting bond wires. Additionally, direct contact between the package substrate and the RF MMIC improves RF by reducing the RF signal path and providing less resistance when compared to typical SMT designs, and it improves the heat transfer from the device to the assembly by removing the intervening package. Avago says that the reduced number of bond wires greatly increases reliability of the parts. Company News Release IBM Research Advances CPV Technology with Cooling System
CompoundSemi News StaffMay 19, 2008...IBM USA of Armonk, New York reported a photovoltaics technology breakthrough that the company says could significantly reduce the cost of getting electricity through solar power.
IBM scientists are reportedly using a large lens to concentrate the Sun’s power of 230 watts onto a centimeter square solar cell. That energy is then converted into 70 watts of usable electrical power. IBM notes that this is roughly five times the electrical power density generated by typical cells using CPV technology in solar farms. This translates to over 30 percent conversion efficiency. The IBM system is a 2300X solar concentrator system. According to the company, this cuts the required number of solar cells by a factor of 10. The IBM research team made the breakthrough when they coupled a commercial solar cell to an advanced IBM liquid metal thermal cooling system using methods developed for the microprocessor industry.
The researchers speculate that if they can succeed in moving from the lab to the fab, the disign might significantly reduce the cost of a typical CPV based system. IBM points out that it is exploring four main areas of photovoltaic research including: using current technologies to develop cheaper and more efficient silicon solar cells, developing new solutions based on processed thin film photovoltaic devices, concentrator photovoltaics, and future generation photovoltaic architectures based upon nanostructures such as semiconductor quantum dots and nanowires. Company News Release
Optical Component Companies, Finisar and Optium Announce All-Stock Merger
CompoundSemi News StaffMay 19, 2008...Finisar and Optium have jointly announced an all-stock merger agreement. Under the terms of the definitive agreement, Finisar Corporation of Sunnyvale, California and Optium Corporation of Horsham, Pennsylvania USA, will combine to form what they contend is one of the largest optical component suppliers in the world.
Finisar will reportedly leverage its expertise in storage and data networking, and Optium will bring its leadership in telecommunications and CATV markets. The companies indicated that the merged company, which will keep the Finisar name, will broaden its customer relationships with complimentary product portfolios, will increase its manufacturing flexibility, and would benefit from unprecedented research and development resources that would enhance the new company’s ability to bring new products to market. The two revenues of the companies for 2007 was about $554 million. The combined company with about 5,000 total employees is expected to post nearly $660 million in revenues for 2008.
Eitan Gertel, Chairman and CEO of Optium Corporation stated, "In combining with Finisar, we will unleash a powerful opportunity to create added shareholder value through breadth of product, enhanced customer support and manufacturing flexibility. With little product overlap, the proposed combination will complement both companies by providing more choice for customers, best-in-class technologies, focused technology innovation and cost efficiencies to meet our customers' requirements. Customers and employees will be treated with the utmost care in combining our two companies." Finisar News Release Firecomms and ISMS Collaborate to Deploy POF Networking Solutions in Local Municipalities
CompoundSemi News StaffMay 19, 2008...Firecomms Ltd. of Austin, Texas USA, reported that it will be collaborating with Information Systems Management Solutions (ISMS) to bring plastic optical fiber (POF) networks to single and multiple dwelling units in local municipalities. Firecomms Ltd. noted that the networking solution would use its POF technology and its vertical cavity surface emitting lasers. ISMS said it will advocate to municipalities and developers the use of Firecomms’ POF technology with its fiber in the home (FITH) technology. In addition to single and multiple dwelling units the POF network would go to offices and institutions for the support of broadband applications.
"With its high-performance and low cost implementation for broadband networks, Firecomms’ OptoLock plugless transceiver coupled with POF fits nicely with our strategy of delivering superior network solutions while lowering deployment costs," said James Hettrick, chairman of ISMS. "The simplicity of this networking solution also makes possible do-it-yourself networks, putting control over future network installations in the hands of the consumer."
"As a strategic consultant to municipalities, developers and utilities worldwide, ISMS is in a unique position to evangelize Firecomms’ POF transceiver products for emerging community-based communications networks," said Lawrence Thorne, Firecomms' vice president of sales and marketing in the Americas. "The inclusion of POF in building ordinances is a significant step toward making this do-it-yourself technology ubiquitous inside homes and businesses worldwide." Firecomms News Release ZTE Corporation Recognizes TriQuint with 2007 Supplier of the Year Award
CompoundSemi News StaffMay 19, 2008...TriQuint Semiconductor of Hillsboro, Oregon USA announced it received ZTE Corporation’s 2007 Supplier of the Year Award. ZTE, a global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions based in Shenzhen, China, said it recognized TriQuint as “Supplier of the Year” for its performance on cost, quality, delivery, and service. ZTE says it utilizes multiple TriQuint products for mobile phones and base station applications including TriQuint’s Quantum Tx Module family for use in ZTE’s line of ultra low-cost handsets and TriQuint’s Hadron PA Module family for ZTE’s successful high-end WEDGE-enabled handsets.
Mr. Weibing Tian, Vice President of ZTE KangXun, said “TriQuint is a key supplier to ZTE Corporation and we deeply appreciate their consistent, high-quality products, reliability and commitment to customer service. Their highly integrated RF solutions lower ZTE’s bill-of-materials and work seamlessly with the Silicon transceivers, enabling us to get to market with the latest solutions faster. We look forward to continuing to work closely with TriQuint and together, enjoying mutual success.” TriQuint News Release Our news features are reported
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