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Editorial: GaN Foundry Services Finally in the News
... It's been a long time coming, but two major USA compound semi houses, TriQuint Semiconductor of Hillsboro, Oregon and Cree of Durham, North Carolina have announced they're opening their doors to GaN electronic foundry customers (v.s. GaN-based LEDs) . Both companies took the opportunity of the IEEE MTT-S International...
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Avanex Begins CEO and CFO Search After CEO Termination and CFO Resignation
CompoundSemi News StaffJuly 7, 2008...Avanex, a company based in Fremont, California USA that specializes in fiber optic communication solutions, announced the termination of Dr. Jo Major as president and CEO. According to the company, the termination was due to Dr. Major’s inability to work with the company’s board of directors effectively. Also, the company reported the resignation of Ms. Marla Sanchez from her position as senior vice president and chief financial officer (CFO).
Avanex reportedly appointed Dr. Giovanni Barbossa to be intermim CEO. Avanex says that Barbossa has forked for the company since 200, and has most recently served as senior vice president and chief technology officer (CTO). Avanex said that it has begun a search to fill the CEO and CFO positions. The company appointed Mr. Paul Smith, a current member of the Board, to be non-executive chairman of the board.
"I would like to thank Jo, on behalf of our Board of Directors, for his contributions in taking the Company through a difficult transition period over the last several years. We look forward to continuing the solid execution of the Company's strategy," said Mr. Smith. Company News Release Alpha & Omega Semiconductor Enters Boost Regulator Market
CompoundSemi News StaffJuly 7, 2008...Alpha & Omega Semiconductor, Inc. (AOS) has introduced the first regulator in what it will call its EZBoost Family. The company says that the AOZ1905
is ideal for high efficiency DC-DC boost applications such as for providing bias voltages in LCD panel power for handhelds, notebooks, monitors, and TVs as well as for general purpose boost applications in personal navigation devices, power tools, set top boxes, and TV tuners. AOS explained that the AOZ1905 is a current-mode, constant frequency boost regulator with a switch current limit of 2A. Depending upon application requirements, its pin selectable switching frequency of 600kHz or 1.2MHz can reportedly be adjusted to optimize efficiency and external component size.
The company says that the current-mode control ensures easy loop compensation and fast transient response. The AOZ1905 operates from a 2.7V to 5.5V input voltage range and generates an output voltage as high as 24V. The company boasts that the built-in 0.15Ohm/2.4A MOSFET can achieve greater than 90% efficiency. The company notes the device’s other features which include input under-voltage lockout, cycle-by-cycle current limit, thermal shutdown and soft-start.
“The AOZ1905 EZBoost regulator integrates a low RDS(on) boost FET capable of output voltages as high as 24V while enabling up to 3% higher efficiency compared to competing devices with similar current rating,” said Alan Moore, Marketing Manager of Power IC products at AOS. “We are already shipping this product in volume to our key customers.” Company News Release July 7, 2008...Global Solar, a developer of thin film copper indium gallium diselinide (CIGS) solar cells on flexible substrates, will be presenting its technology at Intersolar North America on July 15 in San Francisco. Dr. Jeff Britt, chief technology officer at Global Solar Energy, will reportedly be presenting during the photovoltaic portion of the program. His presentation will be entitled, "Innovative Concepts for Cells & Modules (Thin-Film)".
The company is also inviting conference attendees to a follow-up panel discussion in which it will be represented along with other thin-film solar leaders.
Global Solar says it has developed a proprietary process for manufacturing thin-film CIGS photovoltaic cells and modules, and claims to be the only company reliably producing CIGS that can be encapsulated in traditional glass modules or in a flexible substrate. Dr. Britt will discuss the company’s unique production processes that it is using at its new Tucson, Ariz., manufacturing plant. Global Solar boasts that the Tucson, Arizona plant is the largest of its kind in the world with its phase-one annual production of 40 MW. The company also says that it will set up a second plant in Berlin, Germany, a hot bed for solar development. The annual production capacity of this facility will reportedly be 35 MW. Company News Release Lux Research Predicts Thin-Film Technology to Reach 28 percent of Solar Market in 2012
CompoundSemi News StaffJuly 3, 2008...Lux Research has released a report outlining the increasing market penetration of thin-film solar technology. The company points out that the photovoltaic market has had many years of strong growth led largely by crystal silicon. The company’s report contends that thin-film solar technology has reached what economists call critical mass. According to the company, thin-film solar including amorphous silicon, cadmium telluride, and copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) will make up 28 percent of the solar market with $19.7 billion in revenue in 2012.
Lux research predicts that thin-film silicon technologies from turn-key vendors will be ramping up production during the second half of 2008. Cadmium telluride (CdTe) module producers such as First Solar, and startups including Calyxo and Primestar will also have aggressive ramps. The company contends that CIGS module manufacturers are reaching the cusp of technology viability.
The report predicts that the growth rate for thin-film solar technology will become more robust during the second half of 2008. The company predicts that clear winners and loser will emerge from the maelstrom of technological development with over 100 companies offering thin-film solutions with mostly unproven and undifferentiated technology and high demand.
“CdTe module manufacturing costs are less than one third that of crystalline silicon, and the new amorphous silicon turn-key lines by Applied Materials and Oerlikon promise half the cost to start with further declines in the future,” said senior analyst Michael LoCascio. “These technologies will be the first choice for the burgeoning utility sector, squeezing out incumbent technology.” Lux Research News Release StockerYale Awarded Laser Diode Contract
CompoundSemi News StaffJuly 3, 2008...StockerYale of Salem, New Hampshire, has been awarded a contract to supply custom packaged laser diodes for the telecommunications division of a mult-billion dollar, unnamed technology company. StockerYale says it expects that the contract revenues will initially be in the six-figure range and increase over time.
“This contract award further underscores the turnaround in Photonic Products recorded in the first quarter and validates our market-leading technology,” stated Mark W. Blodgett, Chairman and CEO of StockerYale. “Additionally, in securing a customer of this stature, we once again demonstrate our ability to leverage core technology competencies and apply them to solutions that yields a faster time-to-market and greater efficiencies for the end-customer.”
Stocker Yale says its Photonic Products unit has developed sophisticated processes for custom design and high volume manufacturing.
Damon Cookman, Managing Director of Photonic Products Ltd., said, “Our laser diodes are integral to the customer’s new innovative, next generation product, for which demand has been very high. The receipt of this award is indicative of our ability to rapidly produce initial prototypes and the capacity to ramp up production to satisfy increasing orders while maintaining consistently high quality.” StockerYale News Release Aixtron Gets Order from Taiwan LED Company
CompoundSemi News StaffJuly 3, 2008...Aixtron AG announced that it received an order from EpiLEDs Technologies, Inc. for four CRIUS systems each with 31x2 inch capacity.
EpiLEDs Technologies, located in Taiwan, is a leading manufacturer of Ultra High Brightness (UHB) LEDs.
Aixtron AG of Aachen, Germany, announced that it has received an order from EpiLEDs Technologies of Taiwan for four CRIUS MOCVD systems with 31x2-inch capacity.
EpiLEDs is a maker of what it calls ultra high brightness LEDs.
Mr. Steve Ku, President of EpiLEDs Technologies Inc., commented “Our production engineers are highly satisfied with the Aixtron MOCVD production tools we already have. In fact our success has been such that we now need to expand our present capacity with more CRIUS tools. The development and production performance is unequalled - Aixtron provides a very responsive qualification and maintenance support which enables us to quickly achieve our targets for market growth." Aixtron News Release. Umicore Plans Capacity Expansions for Germanium Substrates and Rechargeable Battery Materials
CompoundSemi News StaffJune 30, 2008...The Materials Technology Group of Umicore announced that it would increase the production of its germanium semiconductor substrates for use in high efficiency solar concentrator cells. The company indicated that it would also expand its capacity for lithium-ion battery materials. The capacity increase for germanium wafers will reportedly be set up at the company’s Quapaw, Oklahoma USA facility. Umicore says that construction at the site will begin in July and is scheduled to be completed in the spring of 2010.
The combined investment level is expected to reach € 45 million. Umicore points out that both investments will strengthen its offering of materials for clean technology applications. Additionally, Umicore said that the facility will effectively double the wafer production capacity of its existing production site in Olen, Belgium to 900,000. The company indicated that its Quapaw’s location has the advantage of being close to the activity’s sizeable customer base in the United States. The company says its solar cells have equipped the most currently launched satellites and also longer range missions such as NASA’s current Phoenix Mars Lander.
Umicore said it will also expand its production capacity for cathode materials (3) for use in lithium-ion rechargeable batteries at its facilities in Cheonan (South Korea) and Jiangmen (China). The company said it would add new production lines which would be operational by the second quarter of 2009. Company News Release
XenICs Inaugurates Volume Production in SingaporeJune 30, 2008...XenICs, an infrared detector maker based in Leuven, Belgium, has established a Singapore based subsidiary sInfraRed Pte Ltd. sInfraRed, is 100 percent owned by XenICs, and it provides marketing, sales, and support in addition to volume production and customization of XenIC’s products in Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. According to XenICs, sInfraRed will cover the full spectral range of its product portfolio including InGaAs products. sInfraRed is targeting lower-cost volume production and customization of products for local markets. sInfraRed is reportedly expected to achieve significant cost reductions for XenICs' expanding large volume production of advanced cameras and infrared detector solutions. XenICs says that it established sInfraRed as a consequence of the strong Euro currency position. XenICs indicates that the location will help it compete with USD-denominated competitors.
XenICs noted that Raf Vandermissen will head sInfraRed, and the subsidiary will act as sales office for Asia, Australia and Middle East to support the existing distributor network in these regions. XenICs also indicated that sInfraRed will serve as a manufacturing base for ROICs and PCBs in subcontracting projects and a place for custom product development for camera and ROIC design.
"With this geo-strategic expansion," says Bob Grietens, founder and CEO of XenICs, "we combine XenICs' flexibility in terms of advanced product development and state-of-the-art product performance with substantial price reductions in volume markets. We can also secure supplying worldwide markets that are better served locally than from our European home base." Company News Release TriQuint Semiconductor Appoints Former Intel Executive to VP Position
CompoundSemi News StaffJune 30, 2008...TriQuint Semiconductor announced that it has appointed Steve Grant to be a new VP of worldwide operations. Mr. Grant worked at Intel Corporation for the last 27 years. He was most recently Vice President of Intel's Technology and Manufacturing Group in Oregon. Mr Grant managed the Fab manufacturing network. According to TriQuint, Mr. Grant improved the manufacturing structure and efficiency to reach record performance levels. He holds a bachelor of science in material science from the University of Illinois.
"I am very excited to have Steve join the team. His experience at the world's largest and most advanced semiconductor company will bring significant know-how and benefits to TriQuint. We feel fortunate to have attracted such an industry expert," Ralph Quinsey, TriQuint’s CEO stated. TriQuint News Release
RFMD Releases High-Performance Out-of-Band Tuner for Digital CableJune 30, 2008...RFMD of Greensboro, North Carolina USA, has released an out-of-band tuner for use in cable and set-top box and digital cable ready television applications. According to the company, the S510075-33Z is designed to provide original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) with energy efficiency while meeting the increasing performance requirements of cable devices.
The S510075-33Z consists of an input automatic gain control (AGC) amplifier integrated with, a mixer and an AGC video amplifier. It reportedly delivers a 60 percent size reduction and 25 percent reduction in power consumption compared to the previous generation S510065-55Z. The company says that the S510075-33Z leverages its innovations in silicon CMOS design techniques to deliver the improvements while maintaining the required low distortion performance necessary for end market applications. RFMD notes that in 2008 it will expand its portfolio of CATV products to include new generations of active splitters, programmable return path amplifiers and line amplifiers. Company News Release Our news features are reported
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The
McDonald Report
Commentary & Perspective...
GaN Foundry Services Finally in the News
Jo Ann McDonald, founding editorJune 23, 2008...It's been a long time coming, but two major USA compound semi houses, TriQuint
Semiconductor of Hillsboro, Oregon and Cree of Durham, North Carolina have announced
they're opening their doors to GaN electronic foundry customers (v.s. GaN-based
LEDs) . Both companies took the opportunity of the IEEE MTT-S International
Microwave Symposium (IMS 2008) in Atlanta, Georgia to make their announcements.
The world has embraced GaN for LED applications rather nicely. Without GaN you
simply wouldn't have blue spectrum LEDs (which includes green, white and UV).
But for those of us who have been championing GaN for electronic applications
for what seems to be decades, the fact that foundry doors are finally opening
is great news. The only thing yet to be determined is if there are enough customers
out there to make the efforts worthwhile.
As usual in the field of advanced compound semi materials science, this latest
"overnight success story" has actually taken about 20 years to unfold.
GaN electronics finally hit the ultimate commercialization goal by enjoying
a few days in the spotlight at MTT-S in Atlanta. Stars of the show (from our
point of view) were TriQuint and Cree with their individual flavors of GaN-based
foundry services for electronic applications.
TriQuint is generically referring to their process line as "GaN Foundry
Service" which has a nice, simple, straightforward ring to it, whereas
Cree is capitalizing on their existing MMIC foundry offerings calling their
foundry services an expansion of their standard full-wafer (SFW) MMIC Foundry
service to include shared multi-project (SMP) "pizza mask" foundry
runs on a quarterly basis. Cree's SMP service is available for both SiC MESFET
and GaN HEMT MMIC processes. Not so straightforward, but if you're a MMIC designer,
you get the gist. I call it all "GaN electronic foundry services"
as there are sure to be more players in this arena if and when customers start
to line up at the newly opened doors at TQ and Cree.
TriQuint's
announcement was targeted to customers with circuit designs intended for
production starts in September of 2008, underscoring all the virtues of GaN
for electronic applications that those of us inside CS circles have come to
know so well. The fresh phrases they used that I liked especially were: (1)
that GaN "offers considerable power savings and smaller device form factors
for space-conscious design applications" which gave it a somewhat sexy
sound, and (2) that: "The benefits lead to better performance and lower
overall system costs for the customer, and can shrink carbon footprints for
network system operators focused on reducing global warming" which makes
GaN sound downright trendy.
TriQuint's intrepid director of defense product marketing, Gailon Brehm, who
has been connected with the various DARPA-backed wide bandgap development projects
for many years, was spokesman for the offering noting that TriQuint’s GaN
Foundry services will initially target power amplifier applications through
the Ku frequency band. He was quoted as saying, "Now that we’ve
released the first member of our GaN discrete amplifier family for defense,
commercial and space applications, we’re welcoming Foundry customers who
have their own circuit designs ready for September 2008 starts. We want to meet
with customers, identify their needs and develop a successful implementation
production schedule." I'm sure they do. Virtually everyone in
the GaN electronics community wants to meet with customers and implement a production
schedule. They'd like it even better if they were prompt-paying customers with
high volume requirements and feasible specs.
TriQuint has been a tremendous supporter of early stage GaN development and
has kept an open mind about GaN from the outset. You may recall they were the
first to run Nitronex' designs for impressive proof of concept. They've had
their noses to the GaN grindstone since GaN became a workable reality, and their
due diligence looks like it's now positioned well. They had a huge order come
in March from IQE Plc for GaN epiwafers with deliveries scheduled throughout
2008 that have helped support TriQuint's ongoing development efforts and products
for both defense and commercial applications. IQE itself has a great commercial
GaN effort going via its acquisition of the old Emcore epiwafer foundry services,
now called IQE-RF in Somerset, New Jersey.
TriQuint's own high frequency GaN electronic device family, around which the
foundry services are likely to revolve, includes discrete die-level devices
operate up to 18 GHz, have 55% power added efficiency (PAE), and can produce
up to 90 Watts of output power. The boilerplate marketing pitch underscores
that "GaN power technology has garnered significant defense and commercial
interest because of its ability to operate with substantially greater power
density (more wattage per square millimeter) and efficiency compared to other
commonly used solid-state amplifier technologies. These factors enable the development
of more efficient, smaller amplifiers capable of operating at higher system
voltages, which lower overall system current demand and reduce the cost of power
conversion." They turned to Strategy Analytics for the applications' pitch
stating that...
"Strategy Analytics sees future radar, communications, EW [electronic
warfare] and smart munitions platforms in the defense sector driving early demand
for GaN. There are also a myriad of commercial opportunities within wireless
infrastructure and satellite communications as well as those in broadcasting
and medical markets. Inherent GaN properties including high power at high frequency,
coupled with high voltage and wide bandwidth performance, make gallium nitride
a technology that will see broad applications as it evolves in the marketplace.
GaN’s further advantages including reduced form factors and weight savings
translate into system efficiencies that positively impact both capital and operating
expenditures.” That credited to our good friend Asif Anwar, Director,
GaAs and Semiconductor Technologies, Strategy Analytics.
Cree has also been working on GaN for a long, long time. Traditionally a SiC
house, they acquired tremendous GaN expertise when they integrated ATMI's GaN
team, headed by our good friend George Brandes. George traditionally grows great
GaN and, he's a great team player. But when Cree acquires you it's almost as
if you fell off the face of the earth. You never hear from those people again
until an announcement like this proves that they're not only still doing what
they do best, but that they've been up to something really special behind those
closed doors. My hunch is that what Cree is offering could be the best of the
best. Cree's
announcement at MTT-S of the ensuing of GaN foundry services also came with
the announcement of their latest GaN MMICs which include a wideband 5 watt distributed
amplifier operating from DC to 6 GHz and a higher power, 25 watt reactively
matched amplifier operating from 2.5 to 6 GHz. Both MMICs are geared for a variety
of applications where high power over broad bandwidths is required. Their foundry
offering is an expansion of what they call their standard full-wafer (SFW) MMIC
Foundry service to include shared multi-project (SMP) "pizza mask"
foundry runs on a quarterly basis. This SMP service is available for both SiC
MESFET and GaN HEMT MMIC processes.
Jim Milligan, Cree's director of RF and microwave products was spokesman for
the MTT rollout and noted that: "These products can provide our customers
with the performance improvement and size reduction benefits of microwave circuit
integration in convenient 'drop-in' 50 ohm amplifiers. Further, our new SMP
foundry service will be ideal for lower-cost prototyping of SiC or GaN MMICs
by allowing customers to purchase a portion of a shared multi-project wafer."
Our good pal John Palmour, executive VP for advanced devices at Cree and incredible
longtime champion of wide bandgap electronics, weighed in adding that: "This
MMIC milestone is the culmination of many years of internal investment and external
support from the U.S. Department of Defense, the Title III Office, and the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). We are extremely pleased to see the
results of these efforts beginning to pay off for both the military and commercial
markets." That's giving credit where credit is due. Overdue, in fact.
GaN electronics has come a long way, the hard way. The next great news will
be that device designers are walking through the newly opened foundry doors.
If you have questions about the
solid state lighting and compound semiconductor industries or have news
or views to share, I'm Jo Ann McDonald, Editor of LIGHTimes and CompoundSemi News.
Feel free to contact me directly, anytime. 
My direct tel at the ranch is
+1-325-463-5345
From time to time Jo Ann may comment on companies in which she holds a
modest investment - be sure to read
her disclosure at some point in time... |
