DOE to Give up to $17.6 Million for Solar Photovoltaic Technology Development
CompoundSemi News Staff

October 1, 2008...The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $17.6 million for six early stage photovoltaic (PV) module incubator projects. The projects focus on the initial manufacturing of advanced solar PV technologies and support President Bush’s Solar America Initiative. President Bush’s Solar America Initiative aims to make solar energy cost-competitive with conventional forms of electricity by 2015. The industry will reportedly share in at least 20 percent of the total investment cost that is expected to reach up to $35.4 million.

The DOE says it supports the use of clean energy technologies such as solar energy to diversifying the USA’s energy sources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and foreign oil dependence. The DOE points out that it is the lead agency for President Bush’s Advanced Energy Initiative, and it is committed to the diversification of USA’s energy resources through widespread commercialization and deployment of clean solar energy technologies. The DOE contends that the development of innovative technologies such as solar will help provide long-term economic, environmental, and security benefits to the United States.

Of the funding, just 17 percent, $2.97 million will go to Spire Corporation for the development of non-silicon solar cells. The company of Hudson, New Hampshire USA, plans on developing triple-junction tandem solar cells. It will grow differentiated bi-facial cells on a gallium arsenide substrate to allow more optimization of device layer optical properties. The company is targeting cell efficiencies over 42 percent using a low-cost manufacturing method. DOE News Release

October 2, 2008...Research firm, Yole Development of France has release a report outlining the sapphire electronic application business. The company report predicts that the sapphire material market for electronics will surpass $400 million by 2012. Yole points out that sapphire material is mainly used for two applications in the electronics market, gallium nitride (GaN)-based LED and RF switch devices for mobile phones. Yole says that the sapphire substrate market for electronic applications has reached a volume of 4.61 Million wafers including (2” equivalent) for LEDs and several 10’s of thousands of 6” wafers for SoS RF applications in 2007. Yole predicts that the sapphire material market for electronics will grow at a 21 percent annual growth rate to reach $402 million by 2012.

According to the company, nitride LEDs has been the main driver of growth in the market with a 15 percent CAGR for several years to $100 million in 2007. Yole indicated that in 2007 the revenue for SoS at the substrate level was in the below the $35 million range, but it is expected exceed $100 million in 2011. With prices for 2-inch substrates down to $17 per wafer in Asia, companies are looking elsewhere. Demand for 4-inch wafers is reportedly booming. Big players such as Showa Denko and Samsung are moving to 6-inch wafers, the company said. Monocrystal appears to be ahead in the bigger wafer development after a demonstration of 8-inch c-plan sapphire. Yole Development Flyer

Consortium Rescues Caracal Inc. from Bankruptcy to Focus on R&D and Cost Efficient Manufacturing
CompoundSemi News Staff

October 1, 2008...Caracal Inc., a maker of silicon carbide wafers was rescued from Chapter 7 bankruptcy last month after an international consortium purchased the company. Caracal went into Chapter 7 bankruptcy in April after a $1.2 million per year contract from the U.S. Navy was not renewed. (Ref: Editorial). One of the companies in the consortium, Osaka New Metals and Chemicals Corp., Ltd. of Japan, is listed as one of the contacts for Caracal located in Heritage and Technology Industrial Park of Ford City, Pennsylvania USA. Caracal describes the the purchasing consortium as stable and strong with a long-term outlook. A representative of the consortium indicated that it planned to focus on research and development especially in creating more cost efficient manufacturing methods.

Caracal insists that all of its assets remain intact despite the recent bankruptcy filing. The company says that it will continue to develop its gas-based crystal growth process and chlorinated epitaxial process, which it says can grow high quality epitaxial layers at very high growth rates 10 to 20 times faster than conventional growth techniques (more than 100µm/hr, compared to 5–10µm/hr for conventional chemistry). Caracal also points out that it will continue to offer grinding and slicing services for a number of its customers. Company Website

Nitronex Releases 5.1-5.8GHz Perfomance Data on its 5W GaN-on-Si RF Power Transistor
CompoundSemi News Staff

October 1, 2008...At WiMAX World 2008 in Chicago, Illinois USA, Nitronex, has released it 5.1-5.2 GHz and 5.7-5.8GHz performance data for its 28V, 5W class GaN-on-Si high electron mobility transistor (HEMT). Called the NPTB00004, it achieves 27 dBm (400mW) average output power at 2% EVM in 5.2 GHz WiMAX systems, and 28 dBm (630mW) average output power at 2% EVM in 5.8 GHz WiMAX systems (single carrier OFDM, 64-QAM ?, 8 burst, 20ms frame, 15ms frame data, 3.5MHz channel bandwidth, peak/avg = 10.3dB). This data is now available in the NPTB00004 datasheet available on the Nitronex website. Ray Crampton, Director of Marketing at Nitronex commented, “The NPTB00004 is a uniquely versatile product that, combined with other broadband devices from Nitronex, allows designers to develop power amplifiers for multiple frequency bands using a common power device lineup.” Company News Release

RFMD Adds to Asian Presence
CompoundSemi News Staff

September 29, 2008...RFMD of Greensboro, North Carolina USA, has announced the opening of a customer support center in Bangalore, India. The company points out that the new customer support center in Bangalore is part of its growing presence in Asia and specifically in India. RFMD says it will conduct applications engineering, customer service, sales management, and technical sales from its Bangalore customer support center. RFMD says that with the employees going to the new center the company will have a total of nearly 100 sales, applications engineering, and customer service employees working in seven customer support centers throughout Asia. RFMD says that the Bangalore center will allow the company to support regional manufacturers in Greater India, The company says that these manufacturers are increasingly developing leading-edge products for wireless and other applications. The available customer base in India includes growing markets such as aerospace and defense, broadband, cellular, WiFi and WiMAX, and wireless infrastructure, according to RFMD.

Greg Thompson, RFMD's vice president of sales for its Multi-Market Products Group, said, “Our Bangalore center will provide product designers in India with real-time access to our world-class technical support; this center will also provide assistance to a wide range of customers as they drive greater levels of functional integration in RF applications across multiple growth segments. We are excited to offer customers in India greater access to the most diverse portfolio of RF components available." Company News Release

CPV Company, GreenVolts Gets $30 Million in Funding
CompoundSemi News Staff

September 29, 2008...GreenVolts of San Francisco, California USA, a photovoltaic concentrator maker, has secured $30 million in Series B funding from Oak Investment Partners. The company uses a combination of multi-junction solar cells and proprietary reflective technology and optics that follow the sun. GreenVolts contends it will deliver world’s largest non-silicon concentrating photovoltaic project with the first megawatt to be completed in late 2008. The CPV plant, known as the GV1 project, will be built as part of the company’s agreement with Pacific Gas and Electric. GreenVolts is reportedly a utility-scale solar technology company focused on delivering wholesale-distributed generation solutions that are designed to produce the low cost solar energy on a massive scale. The company boasts that its system has an “unparalleled” efficiency for conversion of sunlight to electricity.

“We will soon be generating energy from the sun at what will be the world’s largest non-silicon CPV power plant,” said Bob Cart, founder and CEO of GreenVolts.

“GreenVolts has quietly built a company and a technology that will alter the playing field for solar energy,” said Brian Hinman, Venture Partner of Oak Investment Partners. “We believe that over time the GreenVolts system can produce solar energy more efficiently and at a lower levelized cost than competing photovoltaic technologies, dramatically accelerating the adoption timeline for CPV systems.” GreenVolts News Release

Crystal IS Hires New CEO to Lead Company into LED Market
CompoundSemi News Staff

September 29, 2008...Crystal IS, Inc. of Green Island, New York USA , a supplier of single crystal aluminum nitride substrates, has hired Dr. Steven Berger as president and CEO. Crystal IS reports that it recently utilized its aluminum nitride substrates to develop deep ultraviolet LEDs. The company says that after demonstrating significant performance improvements from the use of its low dislocation substrates, it is almost ready to take the deep UV LEDs to market. Crystal IS says that Dr. Berger’s experience of bringing new products to market during his most recent role in the FEI, a electron microscope manufacturing company, will greatly help Crystal IS make the transition to becoming a commercial supplier of deep UV LEDs. The deep UV LEDs will operate at 265nm, what the company say is the peak germicidal wavelength. The company says it will target the water and air disinfection markets, and the LEDs will be available in 2009.

During his 10 years at FEI, Steven reportedly helped bring new products to market profitability in his positions as chief operating officer and chief technology officer. There he was part of the executive management team that grew FEI from $150M to over $600M in revenue. Prior to joining FEI, Steven was a technical manager at AT&T’s Bell Labs. He also taught at Cambridge University, UK, after receiving his PhD from the Cavendish Laboratory. Crystal IS News Release

Oxford Instruments Sells its MBE Business to Riber
CompoundSemi News Staff

September 24, 2008...Oxford Instruments plc, a high technology tools and systems company, announced that its subsidiary Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology Ltd (OIPT) has sold its molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) business to Riber SA of Bezons, France. OIPT says that it plans to enhance existing product lines and expand into new markets, as well as develop new products for its portfolio. The company says that transferring its MBE business will allow it to focus more on the growth markets of the past year. OIPT points out that focusing on the growth areas is consistent with the company’s strategy to double the size of the business and increase return on sales by ten percentage points. The MBE business transfer takes place prior to OIPT’s relocation to a new facility.

Riber is a leader in MBE equipment and components, and it provides MBE equipment and components to public and private major research centers and industrial foundry companies. Riber notes that its acquisition of OIPT’s MBE business is in line with its strategy to develop sales of service and accessories for MBE equipment. Riber expects that the acquisition will strongly reinforce its share of the MBE market in Europe, North America, and Asia. With the number of MBE systems having increased from about 500 to 800, Riber says that it will henceforth be able to service approximately 75% of the worldwide installed base. According to Riber, its extensive support structure will ensure that OIPT’s MBE customers will continue to receive world class service and support. Oxford Instruments News Release

Researchers Achieve 39.7% Concentrator Solar Cell Efficiency, A New European Record
CompoundSemi News Staff

September 24, 2008...Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) reports that it has achieved 39.7% efficiency for multi-junction solar concentrator cells. Its researchers in Freiburg have exceeded their own European record of 37.6% which they achieved recently. They used III-V semiconductor multi-junction solar cells in photovoltaic concentrator technology for solar power stations. In photovoltaic concentrator systems, optimum efficiency is achieved at between 300-600 suns (sunlight concentrated by a factor of 300-600). The researchers point out that the metal wires in the front grid must be big enough to transport large currents with low resistance, but as small as possible because the cell area covered by metal cannot be used for the electrical conversion. “We have improved the contact structures of our solar cells,” says Frank Dimroth, Head of the III-V – Epitaxy and Solar Cells Group at Fraunhofer ISE. “As a result, using the same semiconductor structures, we now achieve the higher efficiency when converting sunlight into electricity.”

The record efficiency metamorphic (lattice mismatched) triple-junction solar cells made of Ga0.35In0.65P, Ga0.83In0.17As and Ge were based on this work sponsored by the EU Project Fullspectrum (SES6-CT-2003-502620). They were designed for inhomogeneous radiation like concentrated sunlight. More than 30 single layers are deposited on a germanium substrate using metal-organic vapour-phase epitaxy (MOVPE). “We are very pleased to have advanced a further decisive step in such a short amount of time,” says Dr. Andreas Bett, Department Head at Fraunhofer ISE. Fraunhofer ISE News Release

Spire Corp. Teams with Wright Williams & Kelly, Inc. to Produce Cost Modeling Software for Solar Cell Production Lines
CompoundSemi News Staff

September 24, 2008...Spire has collaborated with Wright Williams & Kelly, Inc. (WWK) of Pleasanton, California USA, to provide Spire's clients with an unprecedented view of their production costs and return on investment. WWK, a developer of cost modeling software for high-tech industries, worked with Spire to create a photovoltaic module cost modeling computer application for Spire’s clients. Spire produces gallium arsenide solar modules and provides turnkey solar cell production lines.

David Jimenez, WWK's President, commented, "We are pleased to be working with such a forward-looking firm as Spire. Rapid changes in the solar business, coupled with increased investments, have made the environment too complex for companies to adequately analyze their business opportunities and risks using homegrown spreadsheets. Spire's move to integrate Factory Commander(R) into their business practices will provide their customers with the most realistic view of projected operating costs and profitability, providing Spire and their clients a distinct competitive advantage." WWK News Release

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The McDonald Report
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Jumping On the CPV Bandwagon
Jo Ann McDonald, founding editor

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.
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