II-VI Acquires Northrop Grumman's SiC Line From LittonOctober 25, 2001...II-VI Incorporated of Saxonburg, Pennsylvania
USA has acquired, via an asset purchase agreement, the Litton Systems, Inc.
Silicon Carbide (SiC) Group. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The
acquired group will remain at it's current home in New Jersey and carry on their
R&D as usual, according to II-VI. Dr. Carl J. Johnson, Chairman and CEO
of II-VI stated, "Combining II-VI and Litton resources will more than double
our SiC capability and should both accelerate the pace of product development
and reduce time to market. While this strategic acquisition will increase our
research and development investment in the near term, we believe it will make
a significant contribution to the long-term success of II-VI Incorporated.''
Although a relatively quiet player in the field, II-VI has been involved in
SiC since 1998 along with its activities in making devices and materials for
infrared, near-infrared, visible light, x-ray and gamma-ray instrumentation
and telecommunication applications, for which it is more well-known. II-VI's
IR products, sold under the II-VI and Laser Power brand names, are used primarily
in high-power CO2 (carbon dioxide) lasers. Their VLOC subsidiary manufactures
near-infrared and visible light products for industrial, scientific and medical
instruments and solid-state (such as YAG and YLF) lasers and products for the
telecommunication industry and their . The Company's eV PRODUCTS division manufactures
and markets solid-state x-ray and gamma-ray detector products for the nuclear
radiation detection industry, news about which we reported in our last issue.
More details regarding the SiC acquisition is in their press
release.
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AXT Introduces Large, High Flux Green, Blue & Cyan HB-LEDsOctober 25, 2001...On the heels of our Oct.
23 edition which included HB-LED updates from Cree and Lumileds, AXT now
weighs in with new brightness levels and availability. AXT is a mainstay compound
semi industry substrate supplier that also performs up the value chain. Substrate
revenues, which is still 90% of AXT's business, were down slightly from last
year but their VCSELs and HB-LEDs doubled from a year ago. In conjunction with
their earnings report, AXT announced the availability of their new large, high
flux AlInGaN chips in green, cyan and blue are coming off the line, with their
green P2 chips (green's the hardest in the blue spectrum to make) showing output
powers at 350 milliamps of up to 27 milliwatts with 17.5 lumens per watt efficiency
press
release. AXT also announced an increase in brightness across all InGaN colors
for their standard chips. These green, cyan, and blue chips are reported to
have output powers at 20 milliamps of 2.0 milliwatts, 2.2 milliwatts, and 3.0
milliwatts, respectively. The expected packaged lamp power output for these
devices is 4.0 milliwatts, 4.4 milliwatts, and 6.0 milliwatts. Details are in
AXT's press
release. UMS/GCD Team to Blend Compound Expertise with SiliconOctober 25, 2001...United Monolithic Semiconductors (UMS) of Paris, France and Ulm, Germany has
embarked on an interesting teaming initiative this fall with Global Communication
Devices (GCD) of North Andover, Massachusetts USA to develop what the two companies
term "highly integrated chip sets" for the communications market.
GDC is a USA venture funded silicon-heavy fabless systems integrator of wireless
networking products and UMS is a European manufacturer of GaAs based MMICs for
microwave and millimeter-wave wireless applications. While details were not
disclosed as to what the teaming will produce, the respective heads of each
company commented: "By joining our strengths, we will combine GCD's silicon-based
networking transceivers and mixed signal technology with UMS high frequency
GaAs components," said Professor Heinrich Daembkes, President and CEO of
UMS. "This agreement will allow both companies to combine their respective
expertise in two different semiconductor technologies and allow GCD to take
advantages of UMS foundry and worldwide marketing presence," added Geoffrey
C. Dawe, President and CEO of GCD. A pdf file of the Sept. 19 press release
is available over UMS' website.
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Anadigics Positions 3.5 W Power Amp for Korean CDMA MarketOctober 25, 2001...Anadigics, Inc. of Warren, New Jersey USA has introduced a new 3.5v high efficiency,
linear power amplifier module (PA) module which has been specifically optimized
for use in Korean Band PCS CDMA wireless handsets. Dubbed the AWT6109, the new
PA is compliant with all IS95/98 and 1XRTT CDMA system specifications, which
are the Korean standards. Dr Bami Bastani, President and CEO of ANADIGICS, Inc.
commented, in regard to this important key marketplace, "CDMA is a terrific
growth market, and the development of 1xRTT, CDMA-2000 and W-CDMA standards
represent excellent growth opportunities for ANADIGICS' wireless business. Our
InGaP HBT power amplifiers have given us a jump-start on the competition. As
a result, we are gaining share in the CDMA market through design wins with several
Korean handset manufacturers. ANADIGICS' strategy of building a solid foundation
in CDMA has positioned the Company to become a leader in the Korean market,
as well as the emerging CDMA sector in China." The AWT6109 is manufactured
at Anadigics' New Jersey fab, using InGaP HBT technology as a device selection
due to its component reliability, temperature stability, and ruggedness which
provides OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) industry leading ACPR (adjacent
channel power rejection) performance of -53dBc and 35 percent Power Added Efficiency
(PAE). The fully-tested AWT6109 is priced at $4.00 in quantities of 10,000 pieces
and samples of the device with an evaluation fixture are already available now.
Press release Rohm Develops 180mW IR Laser Diode & Releases New Chip Scale PackagesOctober 25, 2001...Rohm Company Ltd. of Kyoto, Japan has developed a new 180mW high-power infrared
(IR) laser diode (LD) geared specifically to serve as optical pickups in high-speed
CD-RW drives. The new product is a follow-on to Rohm's 150mW product. Rohm has
already begun shipping samples of the new product, called RLD78PZW2 at
a price of 2000 yen/unit). The company expects a warm reception and is planning
mass production of 0.5 million units per month expected to commence in December
2001. Details are included in Rohm's press
release. Rohm is also leading the way in chip scale packaging by developing
their new VMN series for packaging the industry's smallest and lowest-profile
discrete products such as transistors, diodes, and tantalum capacitors. Samples
of this series will begin shipping in November 2001 at 30 yen/unit, with mass
production of ten million units per month expected to commence in March 2002.
Details are included in that press
release. Our news features are reported
by the CompoundSemi News staff writers.
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