Mother Nature Shakes Nitride CommunityMay 26, 2003...The Nitride community is always on the lookout for "earthshaking"
news, but who would have believed it literally would come about in the form
of an actual earthquake in Japan just as the 5th Intl. Conference on Nitride
Semiconductors (ICNS) gets underway
this week in Nara. A relatively strong earthquake hit the island Monday evening
around 6:30p (Japan time) that registered 7.0 on the Richter scale. The landbase
center appeared to be near Sendai in Northeastern Japan, a considerable distance
away from Nara. Hopefully all ICNS-goers were already safely ensconced in Nara.
The quake injured at least 98 people, but damage was actually relatively minor,
due largely to the excellent precautions and preparations Japan has in place
to mitigate earthquake damage. Like the entire coastal state of California in
the USA, the densely populated island of Japan is particularly vulnerable to
earthquakes and building codes reflect extreme precautions. Although reports
were that airports and trains experienced minor delays, some late-arrivers at
ICNS may have experienced travel difficulties and those of you with colleagues
attending ICNS may want individual reassurance that all is fine. To be expected,
there were considerable delays in cellphone operations in and out of Japan just
after the quake hit. NTT DoCoMo Inc.'s mobile phone service became partly inaccessible
and NTT East Corp. implemented an emergency messaging service that led to clogged
phone networks in six northeastern prefectures. Also of note to the advanced
technology/energy sectors, extreme caution was taken by Japanese authorities
in closing down or closely monitoring Japan's many nuclear power plants. Elsewhere
in Japan, the quake registered in the range of 5.0 and 4.0, lowering in intensity
moving towards Nara. The quake shook in and around Tokyo and was felt in Chiba,
Gunma, Kanagawa, Saitama, Tochigi and Niigata prefectures. We encourage our Japanese
readers to report in with further relevant news. Cree's Higher Gain SiC Transistor Hits 10 Watt ClassMay 26, 2003...Cree Microwave of Durham, North Carolina USA, a subsidiary of Cree Inc., has
announced that its 2nd generation 48 V silicon carbide (SiC) MESFET process
has been released to production. The initial product based on this new process
is the CRF-24010, a Class A/B 10 W SiC MESFET with a minimum gain of 13 dB at
2 GHz, which is greater than 3 dB higher than previous SiC MESFETs. This device
has an IM3 of -31 dBc at a peak envelope power of 10 W, operates from DC to
2.7 GHz, and has multi-octave instantaneous bandwidth, making it desirable for
a variety of broadband large signal applications. The device has passed initial
internal product reliability tests and is available for customer sampling. "We
have received strong interest in the use of SiC RF MESFETs for a variety of
very wide bandwidth communications applications, and the much higher gain of
this new process should allow for even better performance and wider bandwidths
to be obtained," stated John Palmour, Cree's Executive Vice President of
Advanced Devices and a co-founder of Cree. More details are included in the
company news release.
|
|
The
LED Supply
Chain Conference
Materials,
Epi, Chips and Devices...
June 8-9 Hsinchu, Taiwan
|
|
When
markets are uncertain, winning companies in growth markets push
forward while the incumbent technologies pull back. Now is the
time to press the advantage, and knowledge and updated connections
are what you need to do it. To help you use your time most efficiently,
this 7th Annual international event has been moved to early June
as a lead-in for the 2009 Taiwan Photonics Festival later that same
week. Senior executives from the key industry players will gather
as we examine the complete vertical market, from leading manufacturers
and developers of advanced materials and processes, to packaging
and packaged devices. Before you meet the
crowds, get focused on the key market and technical developments
you need to know. Visit www.BlueTaiwan.com
for all the details.
|
|
May 26, 2003...Crystal IS, Inc. of Watervliet, New York USA has announced that limited quantities
of their new ultra-low dislocation density a-plane, m-plane, and c-plane AlN
substrates are now available. “Our native AlN substrates are fabricated from
our patent-pending boule growth process and are the only commercially available
AlN substrates to our knowledge that are not produced using hetero-epitaxial
techniques,” said Dr. Keith Evans, Crystal IS's COO and VP Business Development.
“As a result, we can offer virtually any customer-specified crystallographic
orientation while maintaining industry-leading dislocation densities of less
than 1000 cm -2 . Other approaches produce much higher dislocation densities
and are extremely limited in terms of available crystallographic orientation.” Keith also noted that recent advances in their manufacturing process bode well
for reducing the cost and improving the diameter and quality of AlN substrates.
"We currently offer 12 mm diameter substrates and plan to offer 50 mm
diameter substrates in limited quantities by the end of 2003.” Company news release.
Highlink Expanding with Strong Patent Portfolio and AlliancesMay 26, 2003...Highlink Technology of Hsinchu, Taiwan, one of the leading and ideally typical
Taiwan producers of GaN-based HB-LED epiwafers and die, continues to expand.
According to Highlink co-founder Chuong Tran, "We have a huge building
to host even more reactors and our chip production. So far we are the major
supplier of wafers to the Korean market (especially Samsung) and many chip makers
in Taiwan." Chuong has especially strong ties to the USA due to his
early work at Emcore on early-stage blue spectrum LED technology which was being
undertaken in the Emcore Apps Lab as a prelude to the rollout of the GaNzilla
tools, and the establishment of GELcore, the joint venture between Emcore and
GE. As noted in today's editorial, Chuong will be attending Blue 2003 and participating
in the "infrastructure readiness" panel on Wednesday, June 11th. Chuong's early-on R&D teammate at Emcore on blue spectrum work, Bob Karlicek, who is now Director of Microsemi's LED operations, will be kicking off the Wednesday lineup. According to Chuong, "The
purpose of my trip is to see the US progress in this field and whether I can
establish some collaboration." Chuong also noted that he had to be
in attendance to "catch up some" from around his old R&D circles
while at Blue 2003. Calling them noted world class scientists (ref: May
9 "Pioneer Awards" editorial), Chuong noted that we're "gathering
many celebrities of the field, like an LED Oscar." Noteworthy in its own
right, Highlink already has 2 USA patents and 4 Taiwan patents under its belt,
and capacity to mass produce 20 million chips per month with a strict quality
control. Highlink is also involved in a strong alliance with LED systems integrator,
Optotech. A major shareholder of Highlink,
Optotech also provides Highlink with device processing knowledge and the two
are working in close cooperation on high-power device design, quality control
of device processing and device lifetime testing. Since Chuong will have plenty
of "online time" while he waits in a hotel room to be sure he's "germ
free" before Blue 2003, you can contact him via email at: chuong@highlinktech.com
Enerleds To Warm Up the Flood Lamp Scene with Luxeon Warm Whites
May 26, 2003...The latest integrator of white LEDs to design a new product around Lumileds'
Warm White Luxeon line is Enerleds Solutions
of Penang, Malaysia. Enerleds's latest high brightness flood lamp will debut
in Q-3 '03 and it will be noted for its compact size and extremely low heat
and low energy benefits, in addition to being UV-free. Enerleds' current daylight
floodlamps range between 30W to 100W to match 70W to 400W metal halide
equivalents. The CEO of Enerleds, Jeff Toh, reported that his company aspires
to be a major specialist in producing High Brightness Lighting applications
such as street lamps and flood lamps as the demand for these products is very
strong in the petrochemical, construction, and roadbuilding
industries. Jeff also reports that Enerleds is in negotiations
with the Light Up the World Foundation which was set up by Professor Dave
Irvine-Halliday (Winner of the famed Rolex Award) to collaborate on a new venture
to light up rural areas in Malaysia with Solar Powered LED street lamps. Jeff
can be reached by telephone in Malaysia at 604 - 890 78 99 and by email: jeff@enerleds.com. Kopin's Devices Get Smaller as Market Gets LargerMay 26, 2003...Kopin Corporation of Taunton, Massachusetts USA has introduced a new product
called the Kopin CyberDisplay Color Filter VGA, which is a 0.44-inch diagonal
640 x 480 color-pixel display. The new VGA display is designed to enable new
consumer product applications that benefit from miniature footprint and extremely
good image quality. "We are very excited to introduce five new ultra-small
display products that are aggressively pushing the envelope of display technologies.
The tiny size, yet sharp images of these displays are truly astonishing,"
said Kopin Founder and Chairman Dr. John C.C. Fan. Company
news release. Our news features are reported
by the CompoundSemi News staff writers.
For submissions or content suggestions, you can contact us using
editor -at - compoundsemi.com
For more information and to reserve promotion space contact
Info7 -at - compoundsemi.com
or call +1 (512) 257-9888
|
