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October 30, 2003...Litigation pressures continue to mount in Taiwan following Nichia's initial
tussles with Epistar. Moving on up the next rung of the supply chain, Nichia
is now making it known to contract manufacturers making use of the GaN-based
products in question that they too will be held accountable. Nichia was just
granted a preliminary injunction order against Everlight, a large Taiwanese
GaN LED assembly manufacturer that uses Epistar GaN products. Everlight is generally
regarded as a "sister company" to Epistar. The specific Everlight
products Nichia is targeting carry the part numbers ES-CEBH712:A3 and ES-CEBH712:A4
which supposedly infringe on Nichia's Taiwan patent No. 160,722. While the injunction
does not specifically cite an Epistar product, consensus of technical people
in the field is that this is indeed targeted at Epistar. According to the Nichia
announcement, the preliminary injunction order may prevent Everlight
from using the accused products, and states that Nichia is currently
evaluating whether to enforce the preliminary injunction order, and whether
to further legal actions against other assembly manufacturers that use products
infringing Nichia's patent(s). General reaction from financial analysts
in the USA is that this could bode well for that country's domestic suppliers
of blue spectrum LED die and packaged devices, the leaders of whom are Lumileds
and Cree. The dramatic buildup of Asian suppliers has significantly pressured
pricing of GaN LED epiwafers and devices. Compound semi industry market researcher,
Robert Steele of Strategies Unlimited, who is a specialist in advanced LEDs
and especially GaN-related markets, commented on Nichia's latest move saying,
"This appears to be a 'warning shot across the bow' that Nichia is willing
to move up the supply chain in order to enforce its patent position. By our
estimate, in addition to Epistar, there are at least 15 additional providers
of GaN chips in Taiwan, and as many as 25 in all of Asia, outside Japan. We
don't know if Nichia will go after other chip suppliers and their customers,
but Nichia appears to be setting an example with Epistar and Everlight to others
that may be seen to be violating their patents." Nichia
news release
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Lite-On Adds Depth and Breadth with Fairchild DealsOctober 30, 2003...Lite-On Technology
Corporation of Taiwan, while highly diversified on the surface, turns out to
be one of the biggest, if not the biggest of the Asian blue spectrum
LED manufacturers, larger even than Epistar. A vertically integrated company,
Lite-On is heavily involved in producing a number of handheld devices that utilize
white LEDs, product developments, including advanced cellphones. The company
is soon to expand on other fronts as well, having entered into equipment and
supply agreements with Fairchild Semiconductor of South Portland, Maine USA.
The "new Fairchild" is noted as a supplier of high performance products
that optimize system power for multiple end markets. The agreements Fairchild
has entered into with Lite-On includes equipment transfer and product supply
agreements that will facilitate Fairchild’s previously announced plans to close
their Wuxi, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia manufacturing facilities. According
to those agreements, Lite-On will purchase manufacturing equipment currently
located in Wuxi and Kuala Lumpur from Fairchild with the equipment transferring
over to Lite-On over the next six months. No other assets, including intellectual
property, business agreements or products, are included in the sale of the equipment.
Under a separate product supply agreement, Lite-On will manufacture components
currently made at the two sites for Fairchild – specifically infrared devices,
optocouplers and displays. Fairchild noted it will continue to meet its customers’
needs for these products through its current sales channels while also noting
that further terms of the agreements, such as a price paid by Lite-On for the
Fairchild equipment, have not been disclosed. Company
news release Spire Scores Aluminum Oxide Substrate Implant PatentOctober 30, 2003...Spire Corporation of Bedford, Massachusetts USA continues to make its renewed
presence in the compound semi industry known, with the intent of once again
becoming a key contributor to state of the art substrate development. On October
21, Spire officially received word they had received a key USA patent on a method
for implanting aluminum oxide in GaAs and "other" group III and V
semiconductor wafers for the isolation of integrated circuit lasers and optical
waveguides. U.S. Patent No. 6,635,559
is titled Formation of Insulating Aluminum Oxide in Semiconductor Substrates,
and describes a process whereby aluminum oxide can be selectively formed in
the top layers of III-V compound semiconductor wafer structures to ensure electrical
isolation between devices in integrated circuits. Thesis is that, because of
a lack of good quality native oxide insulators in III-V compound semiconductor
materials, complete device isolation is deemed difficult. Therefore, Spire's
method of implanting AlO provides the industry with a robust, precision-defined,
physically compatible layer that can be used to provide device isolation. In
addition to electrical isolation. Plus, Spire's method of solving this difficulty
also has applications for optical waveguide formation. (Optical waveguides can
be incorporated into monolithic optoelectronic device structures for use as
waveguides, splitters, combiners, modulators, and emitters.) The patent also
includes use of the method for device isolation in the lateral plane of III-V
semiconductor integrated circuits as well as for incorporation of buried layers
of aluminum oxide insulator material into integrated electronic and optoelectronic
device structures. Target applications for the newly patented technology include
wireless audio communication devices, wi-fi devices, broadband and wireless
Internet and video devices, as well as future optoelectronic and photonic components
and systems. Company
news release
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Cree Gets More Vertical with Move Into PackagingOctober 28, 2003...During Cree's annual shareholder meeting, held Tuesday morning at the company's
corporate headquarters in Durham, North Carolina USA, Cree President and CEO,
Chuck Swoboda, announced that Cree is indeed moving up the vertical model and
into packaged devices, starting with their power white advanced LED line. To
date, Cree has stuck with supplying only SiC substrates, SiC on SiC wafers,
GaN on SiC wafers, and GaN on SiC individual bare die. While they will continue
to offer bare blue spectrum LED die in many hues and brightness, including white,
the move upward in the supply chain to packaged parts will undoubtedly result
in making Cree more competitive with the current USA leader in blue spectrum
and other advanced LED offerings, namely Lumileds. Lumileds is made up of the
same HP/Agilent development team where Chuck Swoboda began his advanced LED
career prior to taking over the helm at Cree. And as Cree moves into the packaging
of their high power SiC devices, the value added will be significant as that
customer base has strong need for properly packaged devices that compliment
the attributes of SiC and leading edge wide bandgap devices such as those based
on GaN. Cree is clearly a specialist company in wide bandgap electronic device
technology. Expert packaging of those devices makes Cree even more valuable
to the compound semi industry. Calling their packaged blue spectrum LEDs precisely
what they are, "lamps," the first packaged product family expected
to catapult Cree quickly into the high power packaged blue spectrum LED arena
is called XLamp. The new line combines Cree's XBright power chip
with innovative packaging technology, and as Chuck explained to shareholders,
that technology does not include phosphor coatings, a step which Cree will continue
to leave to their customers. The XLamp product will be available in multiple
colors for all applications and pre-production sampling of a 1 Watt surface
mount XLamp device is targeted for early calendar year 2004 with initial
production targeted for mid-year. Commenting in the news release, Chuck Swoboda
said, "The introduction of the XLamp product family is the next step
in our plan to drive the market for LED based lighting. We believe that our
ability to offer a high power packaged LED product in addition to our power
chip will be critical in accelerating the adoption of this important technology
into the lighting market. Cree's will continue to focus on meeting the needs
of our customers' chip requirements and will work aggressively to support applications
utilizing our power chip." Company
news release. Lumileds Moves Warm Whites into Volume Shipping ModeOctober 28, 2003...Lumileds Lighting of San Jose, California USA has pushed their "warm white"
version of Luxeon HB-LEDs from sampling stage (where they indeed received a
warm reception), into volume shipment mode. Stating that their version
of warm white are the first blue spectrum industry's first truly warm whites
to deliver production quantities, Lumileds warms boast a color rendering index
(CRI) of 90, a correlated color temperature (CCT) of 3200K, and an average light
output of 20 lumens that is up to 10 times brighter than standard LEDs, with
an expected retention of 70% of its initial light output through 50,000 hours
of operation under typical conditions. For those unacquainted with CRI's and
CCTs and retention lifetimes, the new product essentially opens the door for
significantly greater use of solid-state illumination in interior and task lighting
applications by overcoming the resistance of lighting designers and consumers
to the cooler blue tones of conventional white LEDs. Luxeon warm white provides
an industry-leading In addition, it is the first solid-state light source to
closely match the black body illuminant spectrum across the visible colored
range. These characteristics, says Lumileds, based on advanced phosphor material
technology developed by Lumileds engineers, make it possible for the first time
to create LED-powered luminaires that achieve lighting effects comparable to
those produced with incandescent and halogen bulbs. Potential applications range
from hospitality lighting, including retail stores, restaurants and hotels,
to luminaires and fixtures for display cases and cabinets, task and accent lighting,
and cove and architectural lighting. Luxeon warm white emitters are immediately
available in both unmounted and mounted form in the batwing radiation pattern. (Hmm... batwing design... just in time for Halloween!).
Testimonials from a variety of early stage customers integrating Lumileds warm
whites into their rather remarkable lighting systems are included in the company
news release. Lumidigm to Develop Anti-Spoofing Biometric Sensor for UnisysOctober 28, 2003...Unisys Corporation has contracted with Lumidigm,
Inc., of Albuquerque, New Mexico USA to help develop an anti-spoofing optical
deep tissue biometric sensor that detects live tissue. The development contract
is in support of a Research and Development Task Order Unisys has with the USA's
DoD for Biometrics R&D Support. Lumidigm will use its core technology, which
is called LumiGuard, to develop an anti-spoofing sensor, which they're
calling LumiSure. The sensor measures liveness and other properties of
live human tissue. The targeted application of the LumiSure technology
will be to integrate the sensor with fingerprint and hand geometry sensors to
reduce or eliminate the potential of fraud using artificial methods. Lumidigm
is scheduled to deliver the first prototype sensor during the first quarter
2004. “Lumidigm is pleased to be partnered with Unisys to create this unique
biometric sensor that will reduce or eliminate the most common ways to spoof
fingerprint and hand geometry systems on the market today,” explained Lumidigm’s
chairman and CEO, Bob Harbour. “As the federal government continues the wide-scale
deployment of biometric solutions for heightened security, participation in
projects like this, with Unisys, will provide us with the opportunity to further
improve our state-of-the-art biometric technology." Lumidigm was established
in July, 2001 as a separate, privately held, spin-off company from InLight Solutions.
It is located in the Science & Technology Park at the University of New Mexico,
in Albuquerque. Company news release Our news features are reported
by the CompoundSemi News staff writers.
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