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Editorial: Interesting White LED Patent Included in Cree's Acquisition of ATMI's GaN Operation
and IP
... Who knows how far-reaching this will prove to be... but if you're involved in blue spectrum LEDs, you might want to research US Patent # 6,600,175 titled Solid state white light emitter and display using same. You can view the full text online, courtesy of the USA government. The...
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RF Micro Devices Reorganizes into Three Biz UnitsApril 21, 2004...RF Micro Devices of Greensboro, North Carolina USA has enjoyed exceptional
success despite the downturn and as a result of that success, they have reorganized
into three business units: cellular, wireless connectivity and infrastructure,
with each unit reporting to president and CEO Bob Bruggeworth. Further, RFMD
forecasts the total market addressed by these core business units will grow
to approximately $6 billion in three years, and it has identified opportunities
it believes will drive their revenue beyond $1 billion within three years. Bob
Bruggeworth, president and chief executive officer of RF Micro Devices, said,
"As we begin our fiscal 2005, our realignment around these three core
business units demonstrates our commitment to growth in each of our markets,
and more closely aligns our product development and marketing efforts with our
customers and their end markets. We will continue to invest in the assets and
resources necessary to grow in each of our core markets, and we forecast these
investments will enable the Company to exceed one billion dollars in revenue
within three years." For details as to what lines will be covered in
each individual business unit, we refer you to the company
news release. Color Kinetics Goes for an IPOApril 21, 2004...One of the most colorful and energetic systems integrators of HB-LEDs is Color
Kinetics Incorporated of Boston, Massachusetts USA. They are truly a pioneering
company in the design, manufacture, marketing and licensing of intelligent solid-state
lighting systems. And they're about to go public with their initial public offering
of shares of its common stock. The managing underwriters of the offering are
CIBC World Markets Corp. Their prospectus is available online. Filing
at SEC Kopin's John Fan Featured Speaker at Blue 2004 in TaiwanApril 21, 2004...A veteran compound semi industry pioneer almost as colorful as his CyberLite
LED products, John Fan, the founder and Chairman and CEO of Kopin Corporation
of Taunton, Massachusetts USA, will be our featured
speaker on the second day of CompoundSemi Online's Blue
2004 event in Taiwan in May. He will be speaking in the kickoff slot on
Wednesday, May 12th at the Ambassador
Hotel in Hsinchu. John Fan has always been noted for his innovations and
his innovative spirit. His talk is titled: Heteroexpitaxy to a Brighter World
-- Past, Present, and Future and he intends to provide a look back towards
the concepts that were discovered as a result of GaN developments, and a look
at what is currently in use, a then a look forward towards the application of
the latest discoveries, adding the interest speculation only he can. So you
can expect this presentation to stir up some interesting issues and active discussions.
And FYI... Kopin's HB-LED product, which they call CyberLite's recently were
selected as the Product of the Year by the editorial staff of Electronic
Products Magazine. The magazine's 28th annual award series recognized outstanding
electronic components from the thousands of products introduced in 2003. The
selection of CyberLite and other winners was based on significant advances in
technology or its application, and its innovation in design. Kopin's GaN-based
CyberLite achieved very high power efficiency, electrostatic robustness
and miniaturization in a single blue LED. Company
news release Beam Us Up LockieApril 21, 2004...The cofounder of Endwave and Pacific Monolithics, Doug Lockie, has teamed with
the former CEO of Loea, Lou Slaughter, and together they have formed a new "last
mile" startup, whimsically named GigaBeam.
The new company, located in Chantilly, Virginia USA, is developing and marketing
“virtual” fiber technology, providing a low cost and feasible alternative
to fiber for “last mile” connectivity. GigaBeam’s technology
is a point-to-point wireless system that uses very high radio frequency (RF)
at 71-76 GHz and 81-86 GHz to transmit data at multi-gigabit-per-second speeds.
One gigabit-per-second is the equivalent of 647 T1 lines or about 1,000 DSL
connections. All this came about, evidently, at an October 16th datapoint when
the USA's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorized commercial licensing
rules for this very high frequency spectrum – at 71-76, 81-86 and 92-95
Gigahertz – paving the way for widespread use of GigaBeam technology. “With
just five percent of commercial buildings housing businesses of more than 20
employees linked to a fiber network, GigaBeam bridges the ‘last mile’
quickly and reliably, with ultra-broadband capacity,” according to Lou
Slaughter. He and Doug Lockie served together on an advisory committee to
the FCC on the spectrum allocation. “We worked with the FCC to pioneer
the rulemaking for this spectrum, allowing any organization to deploy multi-gigabit
speed communication links. These new ultra high frequency bands are the only
ones that allow wireless fiber-equivalent speeds with reliability similar to
fiber. Lower frequencies are too crowded with insufficient bandwidth to enable
multi-gigabit-per-second speeds.” Details on the technology are in
the company
news release. DARPA Issues Follow-on RFP for Wide Bandgap RF DevelopmentApril 21, 2004...DARPA recently issued yet another Request for Proposals for Wide Bandgap Semiconductors
for RF applications. This Broad Agency Announcement has issued BAA04-19 (See
Synopsis
and Proposer
Information for details). Whereas Phase I of the WBGS RF program focused
upon the demonstration of innovative processes for fabricating several types
of wide bandgap semiconductor materials including SiC, GaN, and nitride-based
alloys such InAlGaN, this BAA solicits research proposals for Phase II to include
device technologies and a Phase II for circuit technologies. Innovative proposals
are being sought for WBG materials optimization, device fabrication and modeling,
high yield, robust WBG MMICs, and packaging and thermal management. Samsung's Sales Going Up as Nokia's Go DownApril 21, 2004...Two battling giants of the tiny handsets that are catching on all over the
world, Samsung Electronics and Nokia Corp. are fiercely competing for market
share. According to an article in the Maeil
Business Newspaper, Korea, Samsung recorded record high sales during the
first quarter, contrasting with sluggish sales estimates from Nokia. According
to the report, Samsung heightened their image as a luxury brand "through
lucrative but mid-priced products, while Nokia focused on price competitiveness
and mid- and low-priced handsets" and evidently the strategy was "not
helpful to its brand competitiveness." Samsung Electronics saw sales of
4.61 trillion won (1,154 won = US$1) during the first quarter of the year on
the back of camera phones and other high priced handsets. Total sales of handsets
amounted to 20 million units, up by 51.5% on an annual comparison, while Nokia
saw a 2% fall in sales, lower than the forecast of 3-7% year-on-year for the
period, and predicted "sluggish" sales for the upcoming second half
of the year. Dialight Launches Special Luxeon DivisionApril 21, 2004...Dialight of Farmingdale, New Jersey USA, the company that did a great deal
to get HB-LED based traffic signals initially installed, primarily in the USA
and Europe, has launched a new specialist division to serve the needs of potential
users of Lumiled's high brightness Luxeon LEDs for lighting applications. They're
calling it the Dialight Luxeon Design Center where a variety of skills
come together in one coordinated team to give the specifier or OEM a true optimized
“plug and play” solution to custom requirements. The center has dedicated
engineering and development teams in place in both the USA and Europe, complemented
by low cost manufacturing once volume production is reached. For detailed information
on Dialight’s Luxeon Design Center, or for exploring a design project,
visit www.dialight.com/luxeon,
or contact Rich Present, Dialight Corporation, 800-863-3243, fax: 800-863-3244,
e-mail: luxeon@dialight.com. Company
news release Anadigics Appoints WPG to Distribute Wireless & Broadband RFICs in AsiaApril 21, 2004...Anadigics Inc., of Warren, New Jersey USA has added a distribution company
named "World Peace Group" (WPG) to be their new distributor of the
company's RFIC (radio frequency integrated circuit) solutions for the Asia Pacific
territories including Taiwan, India and China. According to Anadigics, WPG is
the largest distributor of semiconductor components in the Asia Pacific Region
with sales of more than one billion dollars in 2003. "We continue to
execute to our vision of market leadership in the growing Asia Pacific markets
by delivering best-of-breed RF solutions backed by world- class customer support,
as we expand our customer base of key OEMs, ODMs, and contract manufacturers
in the region," said Dr. Bami Bastani, President & CEO of Anadigics,
Inc. "This partnership with World Peace Group compliments the establishment
of our Taiwan Applications Center and strengthens Anadigics' ability to win
new business in strategic markets such as Taiwan, India and China. World Peace
Group will provide Anadigics with significant resources and established customer
relationships to accelerate the growth of our CDMA, GSM, WLAN, and WCDMA revenues,
while also providing new opportunities for our CATV and wireless infrastructure
solutions." Company
news release TriQuint Takes the Point PositionApril 21, 2004...TriQuint Semiconductor of Hillsboro, Oregon and Richardson, Texas USA has introduced
a new round of high-performance wireless products designed to meet the needs
of point-to-point radio / satellite communications, and DoD electronic warfare,
communications, and radar subcontractor / manufacturers. The new products offer
exceptional electrical performance and the ruggedness required by battlefield
and high-demand industrial applications and details are in the company
news release. In addition, TriQuint also introduced a new round of high
performance that will point optical networking manufacturers and the cable TV
industry systems integrators in the right forward direction. Details on the
new wired lines are included in that 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 |
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The
McDonald Report
Commentary & Perspective...
April 21, 2004...Who knows how far-reaching this will prove to be... but if you're involved in
blue spectrum LEDs, you might want to research US Patent # 6,600,175 titled
Solid state white light emitter and display using same. You can view
the full
text online, courtesy of the USA government. The patent was originally filed
March 26, 1996 and issued last July in 2003 (sometimes it takes awhile for
the patent office to get around to things). Co-inventors are Bruce Baretz
who was a consultant to ATMI back in 1996, and Mike Tischler, who was one of ATMI's
advanced compound semi industry guru's for many years, left ATMI about the
time Duncan Brown became Chairman of ATMI Japan. Mike became an independent
consultant and is based in Arizona. Both Mike and Duncan were incredible advisors
to this particular journalist in those "good old days" (all three of us have been at this since the 1980s if not earlier than that) and everything those two gifted technologists, in particular, taught me about
true "advanced technology" appears to be coming true. There are 17 patents in the acquired portfolio, but this particular
one is the only one I've read completely, but from the first read, it indeed proves to me that the ATMI legacy will long be remembered and honored. Our
staff and our guest columnists on HB-LEDs and patents are reviewing this patent,
and we're renewing our contact with Mike Tischler. After we've gathered
details, we will be reporting what we think may be the ramifications of this
invention in upcoming issues of The McDonald Report. So... stay tuned... Sandia Tracks Solid State Lighting News & InitiativesApril 21, 2004...Sandia National Labs remains the USA's top government agency when it comes
to tracking and initiating the worldwide conversion to solid state lighting.
In the description
of the lab's SSL activities you'll find a host of great ideas and challenges,
all supporting the lab's mission to significantly improve the USA's energy efficiency
while reducing both environmental pollution and the capital required for new
electricity generation plants. One of the things they're especially great at
is helping disseminate worldwide news relating to SSL activities and and the
initiatives underway in other countries.
Sandia's news
page always does what we try to do here at CompoundSemi News try
an do, which is to properly source everything reported and point you precisely
to a reliable source. If you hit the Sandia site this week, you'll note some
very interesting news items that we haven't yet reported. So, rather than go
to all the work of re-reporting, we'll simply do what they do when they find
an appropriate item on our site. We'll take you:
April16 , 2004: "Taiwan’s National Science Council (NSC) held a press
conference on LED developments, saying that their two-year, NT$12-million research
project on highly efficient LEDs had led to 14 patents, licensed in both Taiwan
and the US, and more than 20 new manufacturing process technologies. NSC also
demonstrated epiwafers with high-efficiency LEDs with special mirror substrates
fabricated by wafer-bonding technology, which make it possible to produce larger
but cheaper LEDs with high thermal conductivity. [Taipei Times
article]"
April 15, 2004: "TIR Systems (Canada) has introduced a new product, LightScript™
The company claims it has been able to improve to traditional channel lettering
with this product – it ensures visual uniformity, protects the LEDs (lengthening
their life), and is designed for maximum flexibility -- the product can fit
into spaces too small for neon." [Press
release]
March - April, 2004: "CHINA’s SEMICONDUCTOR LIGHTING INITIATIVE:
China has released information about its semiconductor lighting initiative.
It will open four industrial base areas to support the initiative, in Xiamen
(Fujian Province), Dalian, Shanghai, and Nanchang. China plans to invest US$1.2
billion initially in the semiconductor lighting project. It has set a goal of
semiconductor lighting output of US$3.6 billion by 2010. AXT's optoelectronics
business, which was sold to the US-based "Lumei Optoelectronics" is
part of this Chinese effort at Dalian. A joint venture company, Dalian Lumei
Optoelectronics Corp (DLOC), has been formed by Lumei Opto and Dalian Luming
Science and Technology Group." (Links
to this coverage are numerous and can be found on Sandia's news
page under this item. Note that this follows up on our initial reports when
the AXT sale went through. Ref our Oct.
23, 2003 coverage, third item down on the right titled: AXT Concentrates
on Its Roots After Sale of Opto to Lumei Optoelectronics ) 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.
Feel free to contact me directly, anytime. 
My direct tel at the ranch is
+1-325-463-5345
From time to time Jo Ann may comment on companies in which she holds a
modest investment - be sure to read
her disclosure at some point in time... |
