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Editorial: End of an Era in MOCVD
 
... MOCVD tools have been heavily instrumental in making the compound semi industry the commercial success it is today. Without the keen competition over the years between Emcore Corporation of Somerset, New Jersey USA and Aixtron AG of Aachen, Germany (the industry's two most well-known names in MOCVD equipment), today's...
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Emcore Sells TurboDisc Division to Veeco

November 3, 2003...Signaling the end of an industry era and potentially heralding the entry into the next (see editorial, this issue), Emcore Corporation of Somerset, New Jersey USA and Veeco Instruments of Woodbury, New York USA officially made it known that Emcore's TurboDisc MOCVD tool division and related R&D functions will now become part of Veeco's growing compound semi offerings. Veeco paid $60 million in cash for the net assets of the MOCVD business unit of Emcore and the transaction also includes a two-year earn-out feature that would require payment of up to an additional $20 million if future revenue targets are achieved. Emcore's MOCVD revenue was $51.1 million for the trailing twelve months ended June 30, 2003. The purchased MOCVD business includes those of Emcore's assets necessary for engineering, design and manufacturing of the full range of TurboDisc systems ranging from R&D to high-volume production systems, plus Emcore's manufacturing facility and applications lab in Somerset, New Jersey as well as related intellectual property. Approximately 120 Emcore employees are involved in the TurboDisc business and will become employees of Veeco.

Emcore introduced the first MOCVD tools to the commercial marketplace in 1984 when the company was first founded as a spinout by former Bell Labs researchers. It stayed with that focus until the company changed management in 1995 after which it went public on the Nasdaq (EMKR) under the direction of Reuben F. Richards Jr., Emcore's President and CEO, and Tom Russell, Emcore's Chairman. From that turning point on, Emcore has grown slowly and concertedly, moving upward in a vertical direction, offering not only its traditional and innovative line of MOCVD epitaxial growth tools, but a progressively broadened product offering that includes epitaxy materials and various components and subsystems for the communication industry. Emcore is noted now for their advanced solar cells for satellite communication, and because of their acquisition last January of Agere's Ortel group, Emcore is firmly entrenched now in optical transceivers. In addition, Emcore also continues to be the co-parent of GELcore, its advanced LED-related joint venture with GE Lighting.

The selling of Emcore's TurboDisc division is being viewed by compound semi industry insiders as huge news because of the change it represents, and overall, a positive step for Emcore as the sell-off will likely allow Emcore to focus its resources more concertedly on its material and device work. And the purchase of Emcore's TurboDisc division by Veeco is being viewed as an equally positive step for the overall equipment buyer/user community as Veeco's ownership equates to the potential fortification of TurboDisc tool technology and helps assure its future development, especially as it relates to GaN tool innovation for the production of blue spectrum LEDs and laser diodes, as well as TurboDisc tools for the growing variety of other types of laser diodes. We look forward to hearing more details as the two companies sort through their new structures. Emcore's Reuben Richards, and Veeco's David Reamer will both be feature senior managers at Gorham's 9th Annual Compound Semi Outlook Conference in Dallas, December 15-17. Dave Reamer is co-chairing the event with TriQuint's Ralph Quinsey. The December meet will provide an opportunity for attendees, which traditionally includes the key industry senior management and analysts, to hear more details of what the transfer of TurboDisc means to both companies and to the industry as a whole. Emcore release and Veeco release.

Bookham Gets Antitrust OK on Acquisition of New Focus

November 3, 2003...According to a Dow Jones News report today, Bookham Technologies plc of England has received antitrust clearance from the USA's Federal Trade Commission for its proposed acquisition of New Focus Inc. of California, which it announced September 22, for $190 Million. The FTC evidently terminated the waiting period required for the companies under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act.

Uniroyal Tech Bankruptcy Update

November 3, 2003...Uniroyal Technology Corporation in Florida has gone the next steps in USA bankruptcy and receivership process. It has only now come to more widespread public light, via a Nov 3 8K filed to the SEC, that on August 14 UTC reported that it had filed with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware a motion for approval of bidding procedures and sale of substantially all the assets of the Company's subsidiary, Uniroyal Engineered Products, LLC ("UEP") to UEP Acquisition LLC for a purchase price of $17.39 million, subject to adjustments. Howard R. Curd, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, is a principal of UEP Acquisition LLP. No other potential purchasers having appeared at the auction scheduled for September 24, 2003, the sale to UEP Acquisition LLC was approved by the Bankruptcy Court on October 3, 2003. The sale was consummated on October 17, 2003. The Company's subsidiary, Uniroyal Optoelectronics, Inc. ("UOE") has been selling its assets in piecemeal fashion since August 1, 2003. On October 30, 2003, the Bankruptcy Court issued an order converting the cases to liquidation under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code. It is not anticipated that the Company's stockholders and holders of unsecured and administrative claims will receive any recovery in the bankruptcy proceedings. The liquidation of the assets of the Company and its subsidiaries will be completed under the direction of a Chapter 7 trustee appointed by the Office of United States Trustee. News release

nLight Gets $5 Million DARPA Contract for High Power Lasers

November 2, 2003...nLight Photonics of Vancouver, Washington USA has been awarded from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) a $5 million research and development contract under DARPA's SHEDS program to help enable nLight to take what nLight describes as "a dramatic step forward in high power laser diode efficiency." The vision of the SHEDS program (Super High Efficiency Diode Source) is to continue the improvement of laser diodes with a goal of converting over 80% of their input electrical power into output optical power, whereas the field can only produce 50% efficiency right now. 80% efficiency is expected to then enable lasers with up to 100-kW of output power to be deployed on mobile military platforms. “This program will enable nLight to take a quantum leap forward in high power diode laser performance” said Jason Farmer, Vice President of Advanced Technology at nLight. “Both output power and reliability of high power diode lasers are critically dependent on operating temperature. With current packaging technologies every watt of heat generated corresponds to a particular rise in operating temperature. The key issue for reliable high power laser diodes is therefore optimizing the ratio of optical power generated to heat deposited in the package. Today, roughly this ratio is roughly 1 to 1. The technology to be developed on this program will increase this ratio to 4 to 1.” Company news release

FLX Micro Scores Additional Backing

November 2, 2003...FLX Micro, of Solon, Ohio USA, noted for its focus on advanced SiC-based MEMs products, has closed an additional round of venture financing. Backers included Reservoir Venture Partners, Waypoint Venture Partners, The Entrepreneurs Fund and Ohio Innovation Fund, a prior investor. "In a very difficult funding environment, this financing reflects the customer traction and technical progress that has been made at FLX," said Bob Lynch, President and CEO. "The funds will be used to further commercialize silicon carbide micromachining by porting the process developed at Case Western Reserve University to an additional MEMS fabrication facility. We also plan to add product engineers to allow us to leverage our proprietary processes at the product level in close collaboration with our established customer base." For more information, Bob Lynch can be reached at +1 919-608-2930 or via email

K2 Outsources EC Laser Production to Fabrinet

November 2, 2003...K2 Optronics of California USA has entered into a strategic manufacturing agreement with Fabrinet. K2 provides lasers for the telecommunications, cable television, sensing, and test and measurement industries, and Fabrinet is an electronics manufacturing services company specializing in the engineering and manufacture of complex optical, mechanical, and electronic components, modules, and subassemblies, According to the agreement, Fabrinet will manufacture K2 Optronics' EC-48 external cavity lasers (ECL), which are 2.5 Gbps, directly modulated DWDM lasers with up to 650 km reach. For those unfamiliar with K2, it is funded privately by investors including: Advent Venture Partners (UK), Alloy Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Global Technology Group, Intel Capital, JAFCO Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures, and The Photonics Fund. Fabrinet is based in a 225,000 square foot facility with 2,500 employees in Bangkok, Thailand, and maintains sales offices in the United States and Germany. Company news releases

LRC Starts "Bridges In Light" Initiative

November 2, 2003...Doing what it does best, which is helping facilitate society's transition to solid state lighting, RPI's famed Lighting Lighting Research Center (LRC) in Troy, New York USA, has put together an especially proactive coalition of researchers, utility managers, government officials, manufacturers, designers, engineers, and medical experts who are teaming to help chart a new, "socially responsible" course for the field of lighting. Gathering in Saratoga Springs, New York recently, in a gathering the group likened to "the First Continental Congress of Lighting," the meet was called Bridges in Light. The 130 participants worked under the direction of LRC organizer Mark Rea who commented that "No other gathering of the industry's most influential players has ever been called for this type of collective effort." Symposium participants focused on identifying challenges facing the lighting industry as well as long-term, sustainable solutions involving environmentally conscious design, high-quality lighting systems that meet society’s needs, and campaigns promoting the value of lighting. These campaigns, said Dr. Rea, will include education, communications, advocacy, marketing, and leadership. "Most people view lighting as a commodity," said Rea. "They purchase lighting products, but don't understand the true value of lighting, including its ability to affect our health, comfort, productivity, and even energy savings." Those working closely in the advanced LED field, especially in the blue spectrum, will want to read details of the meet and charter, as described in the LRC news release.

GELcore's Flex Accent LED System Available at WalMart

November 3, 2003...The sign of success for advanced LED developers is when your end product actually makes it to the shelves of WalMart. It looks like GELcore of Valley View, Ohio USA, the JV created by GE Lighting and Emcore, has scored another one of those wins by getting their latest product, a "Flexible LED Accent Lighting System" into WalMart stores. The new systems is a patented, bendable 18-inch product that five advanced LEDs and contains adhesive backing for easy installation. It is based on GELcore's Tetra Lighting System and has been designed specifically for mainstream commercial applications such as accenting books, china, collectibles, and electronic equipment. The cool white light provided does not produce any heat or UV output, which shouldn't be surprising since that's not only what advanced LEDs do as solid state lighting rapidly replaces conventional lighting systems, but it's also what GELcore is designed to do. They buy their die from a variety of suppliers and package it right up the supply chain, and because their products have the GE clout, they tend to get purchased by the likes of WalMart more quickly than other suppliers. “The range of applications for this new product is impressive,” says GELcore Product Manager Michael DeMarco. “The system provides a simple alternative for accent lighting which has never been seen before in our industry. In our test markets, we've heard nothing but positive feedback from store managers to consumers.” Company news release

Another Cool Advanced LED App Can Be Found in CK's iColor Cove

November 2, 2003...Advanced LEDs will be even more rapidly accepted by the mainstream lighting industry if they're affordable and clever applications, and that's what Color Kinetics is pioneering with their new iColor Cove EC –- a highly affordable advanced LED-based solution for the generation of saturated color and dynamic effects in under cabinet, edge, and alcove lighting. So for those asking when such devices will become readily available, and how are they being packaged and integrated to get to that state, you've only to look at Color Kinetics latest to realize that they're here and now. And here's the metric all advanced LED developers, especially those working in the blue spectrum want to see, feel and believe... Cove EC will be available in December 2003 at the North American suggested Trade Price of $59 for the 12" unit and $36 for the 7" unit. Company news release

VPEC Shipping Wafer Bonding Advanced LED Chips to Domestic Packagers

November 2, 2003...VPEC (Visual Photonics Epitaxy Company Ltd) is an MOCVD technology based epi materials manufacturer in Taiwan, involved in a wide variety of compound semi materials, and they're doing some of it on silicon (Si) substrates. Their most recent ramp is the shipping of wafer bonding (WB)-LED chips to Taiwan LED packaging manufacturers. Dr. Michael H.T. Yang, the CEO of VPEC, said “VPEC’s WB-LEDs are responding to customers’ strong demand to continuously increase the brightness and life for higher performance applications. The product qualification process feedback from several customers was extremely exciting, and VPEC is in the process of expanding the production capacity.” The WB-LED is based on a patented technology owned by VPEC and includes the use of a silicon mirror-substrate that's used for bonding with the AlGaInP LED. VPEC points out that the metal mirror has a higher effective reflectivity and broader reflectivity angular bandwidth than the multi-layer DBR and reflects the light towards the front surface to significantly improve the total light emission efficiency of LED. VPEC also notes that, since the thermal conductivity of Si substrate is higher than that of the GaAs, heat dissipation of WB-LED has been greatly improved and therefore, their WB-LED has potential for use in high power applications. VPEC’s first WB-LED product is 625nm red LED with >4 lm total flux illumination and <2.4 V forward voltage at 70 mA and note that more new products in the same series are currently in the process of development, and will be subsequently moved to mass production in 2004. The potential applications of WB-LED include automotive lighting, traffic signal, outdoor display, camera (RGB) flashlight, LCD (RGB) panel backlighting and optical-mouse. “The launch of WB-LED will lead VPEC to gain market share in high brightness(HB) LED market. This new product will be expected to become our 2nd major product, besides HBT, and to produce significant revenue in 2004 for VPEC.” commented Dr. Yang.

Accent Bolsters Application Team

November 2, 2003...Accent Optical Technologies of Bend, Oregon USA and York, England has added Andrzej Buczkowski, Ph.D., as their new Senior Scientist in Bend, and Mark Taylor, Ph.D., as Product Manager in York. Dr. Buczkowski's expertise brings silicon wafer and device physics to Accent's lattice engineering and strained silicon-focused applications, and Dr. Taylor's expertise is in lasers, optics and X-ray technologies to the oversight and development of Accent's products for lattice engineering. "Andrzej and Mark bring depth of knowledge as well as experience and capability to our applications team. Their addition emphasizes Accent's commitment to R&D efforts in the rapidly emerging field of metrology for lattice engineered materials," stated Tom Ryan, Senior Director of Business Development. Andrzej Buczkowski received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electronics from the Technical University of Wroclaw, Poland. In 1989, he joined North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC as a visiting research professor and worked with MEMC, SEH, and Semitex on silicon characterization. Mark Taylor received his M.S. and Ph.D. in physics and chemistry from University of Manchester. In 1992, he joined the Institut Charles Sadron, Strasbourg, France, doing X-ray studies on liquid crystals. In 1997, Taylor joined Bede Scientific Instruments as an applications and development scientist with a specialization in X-ray optics and advanced semiconductor applications. Prior to joining Accent, he was the senior development scientist at Bede. Accent, noted for its work in laser diodes, VCSELs, HBTs, HEMTs and as a supplier of optical CD measurement, thin film characterization and optical lithography feedback control systems, is now up to 250 employees of which over 70 are technologists.

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Commentary & Perspective...

Taiwan's the Hot Spot for Blue 2004 in May

October 30, 2003...With the success of Blue 2003 last summer in Dallas, we had to ask, where should we hold the 2004 follow-on? Given the recent IP news and the incredible buildup of MOCVD GaN tools in Asia, especially in Taiwan, obviously that country becomes the hot spot for the production of blue spectrum devices as well as an increase in innovation that we don't hear as much about. Yet. But the handwriting is on the wall that innovation that leads to increased device performance and suitability, along with improvement in yields is what it will take to navigate around others' or lock in their own approaches to the advanced LED technology. So we're going to the heart of the Asian action with the follow-on to Blue 2003. To keep things simple, we'll call it Blue 2004 with the subtitle that expands what we'll cover.

Blue 2004: Advanced LEDs & Lasers, will be held May 11-12, 2004 in the Hsinchu area. This follow-on event will extend and broaden the topics of the original event. This first-of-its-kind international event will gather together the complete vertical market, from leading manufacturers and developers of advanced materials and processes, to devices and system assembly from across the globe. Featured speakers will be selected from companies at the leading edge in development of epitaxy, processing, test and measurement, as well as their materials and source providers, subsystem assemblers and contract manufacturers whose common goal is to promote the rapid deployment, acceptance, and mainstream market adoption of solid state semiconductor light emitting technologies and devices.

An important theme of the conference will be the international environmental impact and overall cost-saving aspects these exciting new device types bring to societies all over the world. Featured topics will include: High Brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs); Blue Spectrum LEDs (green, blue, violet, white and ultraviolet); Organic LEDs (OLEDs); Advanced Lasers and emerging technologies including Light Emitting Nanotechnology and MEMS-based light emitting devices. Mark your calendars now and keep watch for the conference web site coming soon!

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