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Editorial: Numbers You Can Take to the Bank
... Amidst economy woes and summer doldrums, Strategy Analytics issues two reports indicating that things aren't so awfully bad in compound semi land after all. The reports are likely to help encourage new backers to take the plunge into the compounds and pacify those who have had faith in our...
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Emcore Diversifies Its Terrestrial Backlog with Two Purchase Agreements for CPV Receivers
CompoundSemi News StaffAugust 6, 2008...Emcore Corporation, a maker of GaAs solar cells based in Albuquerque, New Mexico USA, reported that it has entered into two new supply agreements for solar cells and receivers with a total value of over $40 million. The larger of the two purchase contracts is a multi-year supply agreement for solar cells, to be incorporated into photovoltaic concentrator systems and delivered over four years. The systems were developed for commercial rooftop installations as well as utility-scale solar farms. The company notes that the customers placing these orders are targeting CPV deployments in California and throughout the United. The company says that production for the orders has commenced, and approximately $1 million of product is expected to be shipped in the present quarter.
Emcore contends that the award of these purchase agreements affirms its position as a leading supplier of the enabling CPV engine, and further diversifies the company’s terrestrial CPV component backlog. Emcore has introduced a line of integrated CPV solar cell products optimized for operation from 500X to 1000X concentration with a minimum average efficiency of 37% and a 20- year performance warranty. Emcore says that using their CPV receivers, CPV system developers are able to focus their efforts on advancing their optical design and optimizing the balance of their system, thereby reducing their time to market. Emcore did not release the names of its new CPV receiver customers. Company News Release IQE is Largest Merchant Supplier and RFMD is Biggest Captive Producer of SI GaAs Epitaxial Substrates, Strategy Analytics Says
CompoundSemi News StaffAugust 6, 2008...Market analysis firm, Strategy Analytics (SA) released a report entitled, “Markets for SI GaAs Epitaxial Substrates: 2007-2012.” SA said that in 2007, the market was split almost evenly between MOCVD and MBE processed substrates. As previously predicted, IQE was the largest merchant supplier of both MOCVD and MBE material in production and revenue. It was aided with the acquisitions of Emcore and MBE Technology. SA estimates that IQE held 36% of the merchant market for semi insulating gallium arsenide epitaxial substrates in 2007. Kopin was number one in MOCVD side the merchant market for SI GaAs epitaxial substrates. The report indicates that VPEC edged ahead of Hitachi Cable, in terms of total material output to the merchant market, and in the MBE side of the merchant market, North American supplier IntelliEPI overcame French Soitec subsidiary, Picogiga, by 3 percentage points.
Asif Anwar, Director of the GaAs service at Strategy Analytics said that the captive market of GaAs epitaxial substrates was about 30 percent of the total market output in 2007. He added, “Despite strong growth for the merchant vendors, we believe that overall RFMD will continue to be the world’s largest producer of SI GaAs epitaxial substrates.” SA contends that multimode and multiband markets will increasingly demand SI GaAs substrates and the market will have a CAAGR of 5 percent through 2012. Mr. Anwar predicted, “Demand for SI GaAs epitaxial substrates will grow by 7 percent year-on-year in 2008 and then 10% year-on-year in 2009.” Strategy Analytics News Release August 6, 2008...AmpTech Inc. of Milpitas, California USA, announced that it is now offering GaAs and InP contract manufacturing foundry services. The company says that the gallium arsenide (GaAs) and indium phosphide (InP) foundry services target the radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) and optoelectronics markets. In the first nine months of operations, the company has shipped 1.5 million parts from its four-inch, 15,000 square foot clean room and fabrication line at its headquarters.
AmpTech noted that it offers front-end circuit design support, wafer processing, back-end characterization, RF and DC production testing, and die separation. It has production-qualified processes for GaAs MESFETS, and InGaP heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs). The company says its MESFET process offers linear gain over 85% of the device operating range. The HBT process is characterized by breakdown voltages of over 25V. Additionally the company notes that process modules have been adapted to manufacture optical devices including GaAs and InP PIN photodetectors.
Ray Milano, president and CEO of AmpTech stated, “AmpTech is committed to providing foundry services, and can offer significant advantages in development time, production turn-around, and security of supply for key components in our target markets. ”
According to Craig Farley, director of foundry services, “Our production line includes redundancy in all key equipment to ensure a smooth and predictable material flow, and we offer fast-turnaround options for prototyping. We achieve high yields on both our HBT and MESFET processes, and offer our customers the choice of known good wafers, or known good die.” Company News Release
Columbia Professor Going After More Allegedly Infringing Companies
LIGHTimes StaffAugust 5, 2008...Columbia University Professor Emerita Gertrude Neumark Rothschild and her legal team at Dreier LLP have been looking into some companies that were not previously included in Rothschild’s original patent infringement complaint against 31 companies. Rothschild has reportedly reached licensing agreements with several leading multinational consumer electronics companies over a patent covering key LED and LD technology. Professor Rothschild is the sole owner of a US patent that was issued in 1993 that covers a method of producing wide band-gap semiconductors for LEDs and laser diodes (LDs) in the blue, green, violet and ultraviolet end of the spectrum.
Several companies have approached Rothschild to reach a licensing agreement despite not being named in the U.S. International trade commission case. Content continues for LIGHTimes SecondPage members... Filtronic to Sell Defense Electronics Business; Focus on Point to Point Business
CompoundSemi News StaffAugust 4, 2008...Filtronic Plc has reportedly agreed to sell its defense business to Teledyne Ltd., a subsidiary of Teledyne Technologies Incorporated, for £13.0 million (on a cash free debt free basis). Filtronic’s defense electronics business designs and manufactures customized radio frequency, microwave, and millimeter wave components and subsystems for the global defense industry. It has operations in the United Kingdom and Australia. Filtronic notes that in the twelve months ending May 31, 2008, the defense electronics business generated £14.5 million of revenue and £1.3 million of operating profit. Also, as of May 31, 2008, Filtronic’s defense electronics business had gross assets of £7.4 million.
The consideration consists of a cash payment of £13.0 million (subject to the repayment of intra-group debt). The payment is subject to a working capital adjustment at completion. The proceeds of the transaction will be retained within Filtronic’s general corporate resources, and the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and to the Secretary of State for Defense. It will not be referred to the Office of Fair Trading before the date of completion. Filtronic said it expects to complete the transaction by the end of August 2008.
After the sale, Filtronic said it will focus on its point to point business, and it said that after the transaction is complete, its balance sheet will contain around £40m (c 55p per share) in cash. Filtronic’s board announced its intention to declare another special dividend after completing the transaction. Filtronic News Release Fox Group Licenses its Silicon Carbide Patents to II-VI
CompoundSemi News StaffAugust 4, 2008...The Fox Group, Inc. of Montréal, Canada, announced that it has entered into a patent license agreement with the Wide Bandgap Materials group of II-VI Incorporated. The Fox Group noted that the agreement is the third non-exclusive license agreement the company has signed in the last three months for its silicon carbide related patents. Details of the patent license were not disclosed. However, a cursory search of the US patents revealed that the company apparently has six patents related specifically to silicon carbide. (Ref: U.S. Patents). The Fox Group points out that low defect density silicon carbide is used in the production of high performance power semiconductor devices and optoelectronics such as LEDs, lasers, RF transistors, detectors, MOSFETs, HEMTs, JFETs, BJTs, and Schottky barrier, and PIN diodes.
Barney O’Meara, President & CEO of Fox Group stated, “Fox Group’s key patents are for silicon carbide with low defect density, which is especially desirable for LEDs, RF devices, and high power semiconductors. At this time non-exclusive licenses are still available to companies in the silicon carbide industry worldwide. Since Fox Group is not making silicon carbide wafers or devices, we are happy to have our patents being utilized by our licensees.” Fox Group News Release US Navy Selects GeneSiC for New SBIR Awards
CompoundSemi News StaffAugust 4, 2008...The U.S. Navy has reportedly selected GeneSiC of Dulles, Virginia USA, for two Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards. The awards will fund development of high voltage SiC devices that are critical for integrating high power RADARs, Directed Energy Weapons (DEW), and ship propulsion systems with the modern on-board power sources. After completing a Phase I SBIR project, the US Navy’s Naval Surface Warfare Center selected its Phase II SBIR proposal. The project is to develop multi-kV SiC devices for power conditioning and power distribution systems using legacy and modern ship bus infrastructure. In another SBIR award to the company, the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) has completed award formalities on Phase I of a project focused on the design and fabrication of novel SiC devices for high-frequency, high-power RADAR applications.
"These projects will enable GeneSiC to develop industry-leading SiC devices through its innovative device solutions," said Dr. Ranbir Singh, GeneSiC’s President. "Power devices targeted in these programs will allow Megawatt-level power to be handled with digital precision. This technology has the potential to revolutionize critical commercial and military hardware, not yet possible due to the limitations of contemporary Silicon based technologies. These device development programs can also significantly improve the efficiency levels in power inverters used to integrate wind and solar energy systems with the power grid," he added.
The company said it is aggressively hiring personnel experienced in compound semiconductor device fabrication, semiconductor testing, and detector designs. Company News Release Our news features are reported
by the CompoundSemi News staff writers.
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The
McDonald Report
Commentary & Perspective...
Numbers You Can Take to the Bank
Jo Ann McDonald, founding editorJuly 22, 2008...Amidst economy woes and summer doldrums, Strategy
Analytics issues two reports indicating that things aren't so awfully bad
in compound semi land after all. The reports are likely to help encourage new
backers to take the plunge into the compounds and pacify those who have had
faith in our brand of semiconductors for longer than they may care to recall.
In our mainstay compound device category, GaAs devices, growth was estimated
by Strategy Analytics to have grown by an impressive and steadily bankable
17% this past year, weighing in at a market worth if $3.6 billion in 2007. On
the bulk substrate side of the business, their estimate of demand for semi-insulating
GaAs bulk substrates is that it enjoyed an acceptable increase of 5% in 2007,
with an expected growth at the same level through 2012. Backers, of course,
expect steady, predictable growth. They don't always get it, but that's what
they'd like. At the rate the CS industry is growing, GaAs looks like a good,
steady bet because that segment of our business has obviously (and sometimes
painfully) matured to the point where merchant demand for GaAs is not only steady
and predictable, but that the natural evolution from 4" starting material
to 6" is almost complete as the CS industry continues the journey forged
by silicon, moving slowly to bigger and better starting wafers.
The two reports are titled: GaAs
Semiconductor Market Grows to Over $3.6 billion in 2007 and Markets
for SI GaAs Substrates: 2007-2012 and both ore authored by our good friend
Asif
Anwar. If you aren't already familiar with Strategy Analytics, the firm
has specialized in the compounds for almost as many years as GaAs has been around...
and that's a long, long time. With main offices in both the UK and the USA,
and with Asif traveling tirelessly all over the world in pursuit of facts and
figures, the firm enjoys an excellent reputation, especially amongst us old-timers.
I first got to know them over 25 years ago when they were BIS Macintosh, back
when Simon Lande ran the CS research. I'd go interview a company at length as
a journalist for EE Times and GaAs News, and eventually for this
publication, CS News, which was the first CS industry publication to
go online. Being a non-technical person, I'd painstakingly transcribe long taped
conversations with CEOs and their technical people to assure accuracy. Then
Simon would beg to see the transcripts, sifting through my babble for pearls
that he might have missed in his personal legwork. In its present form, SA's
Asif Anwar knows this growing field so well he doesn't need anyone's help making
sense of it all. It comes rather naturally now. Officially, Strategy Analytics,
Inc. focuses "on market opportunities and disruptive forces in the areas
of Automotive Electronics and Entertainment, Broadband Connected Home, Mobile
& Wireless Intelligent Systems Implementation Strategies and High Frequency
Market intelligence." Unofficially, they're simply great guys that do an
excellent job ..."making sense of it all."
You can read a bit about SA's GaAs reports in our recent news coverage (that's
what we specialize in: the tip of the iceberg), and by hitting the hotlinks
above, you can read the summaries for yourself. I think you'll find that, on
the surface, the numbers are uplifting. But the real bankable knowledge comes
with doing what Simon Lande (now of Magus Research in the UK) and I did in the
old days. Reading the whole report. Reading carefully, and reading between the
lines. Then, when you've digested it all, do what the other winners in this
field do. "Take it to the bank" and help yourself stay in business
another few decades.
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... |
