Emcore Adds to VCSEL Offerings with Acquisition of Corona

July 15, 2004...Emcore Corporation of Somerset, New Jersey USA continues to build the optical communications side of their business and expand their role in VCSELs. The company has now acquired a small Midwest firm called Corona Optical Systems in a cash for stock merger transaction that includes a cash payment of $1.2 million to Corona in return for facilities in Lombard, Illinois and Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The acquisition includes 13 Corona people and the intellectual property and the product offering is parallel optics using an ultra small form factor transceiver which is currently being deployed by Tier 1 customers for use in high-density telecom switching boxes. In the last twelve months, Corona had revenues of approximately $2.9 million and Emcore expects that sales of Corona’s patented OptoCube transceiver line will exceed $4 million in the next twelve months.

"This acquisition adds an extremely talented design and engineering team and provides ownership of a valuable intellectual property portfolio, including a number of advanced technologies such as a panelized substrate and automated optical alignment techniques, that Emcore will be able to incorporate into existing Emcore product families,” said Dr. Robert Bryan, VP of Emcore. Rob himself is a highly respected pioneer in the field of VCSELs. Speaking on behalf of Corona, Brian Gregory, Founder and Chairman said, "Emcore is an acknowledged leader in high density optical backplanes and we are excited about joining the team. We have been a long-time customer of Emcore's high-performance oxide-based VCSEL arrays and have always been impressed with their products’ quality, reliability and performance. This merger allows the Corona team to tap into Emcore's excellent infrastructure and resources to provide better services to its customer base." Further explanation of the transaction and technical descriptions of what will result from the merger are included in the company news release

July 15, 2004...Lumileds Lighting of Palo Alto, California USA has announced a development collaboration with one of its two joint venture parents, Agilent Technologies of San Jose, California that will provide the young offspring of Agilent and Philips Lighting to enter the one LED market in which either does not yet dominate... the mid-range applications so favored now by systems integrators such as those producing digital flash cameras. Agilent (formerly a part of Hewlett Packard) has long been the sole USA supplier of conventional LEDs to dominate that entrenched low power market. Lumileds is regarded as a dominant player in the high power, HB-LED field (based on MOCVD technology, reference our July 13 editorial Lumileds Ramping) targeted at replacing all manner of conventional lighting with Solid State Lighting (SSL) solutions. The totally new series of mid-power range devices will target the automotive, mobile phone and lighting markets, and complement the high-power Luxeon devices currently offered by Lumileds and the lower-power devices currently offered from Agilent.

Adding the the perspective of Lumileds, Michael C. Holt, CEO of Lumileds said, "The industry and customers win with new products that deliver leading technology and performance from Agilent and Lumileds" and reported that the first products from the collaboration are expected to be available in the fourth quarter of 2004 and would be sold by Agilent, with Lumiled's established distributor, Future Electronics, taking the new LED chips to market. Mike also noted that the collaboration between parent and offspring means that, "The combined Agilent/Lumileds product portfolio will be broader and deeper than previously possible, meeting customers' needs now and into the future." . Company news release

Emcore Starts Shipping This Week to Fill $10.2 Million Worth of Transceiver Orders

July 14, 2004...Emcore Corporation of Somerset, New Jersey USA has totally solved its internal manufacturing issues with contaminated materials that go into the making of their high end transceivers, and as a result, they will begin shipping this week to a major router company customer with whom they are the sole qualified suppliers. Emcore currently holds purchase orders for this product line that total $10.2 million. As a result of the delay, Emcore pre-reported a shortfall in revenues for the quarter for their new transceiver product line of $4 million, but their revenue from photovoltaics and electronic materials and devices are expected to meet or exceed demand. It turned out a vendor supplied contaminated material which was not identified until completion of qualification testing of the finished modules, and in order to maintain the integrity of Emcore's business and product line, management decided not to ship finished modules because of the risk of warranty returns. Emcore has since implemented additional quality screens and is reworking finished modules to satisfy additional customer qualification procedures. Commenting on the delay, Reuben F. Richards, Jr., President and CEO of Emcore said, “I want to emphasize that our shortfall has nothing to do with end market demand for our products, which remains healthy. We are confident that the materials issues have been resolved and high volume production has resumed this quarter. Demand for these components remains very strong." The company intends to ship the line over the next two quarters. Reuben added further that, "we maintain our revenue guidance for fiscal 2004 of $90 to $100 million.” Emcore will discuss the quarterly results further on a conference call slated for Tuesday, August 3, 2004 at 9:00 a.m. EDT. Details are in the company news release. Emcore also will underscore that their GELcore advanced LED joint venture with GE continues to go well and has maintained profitability since September.

Patent Dispute Settled Between Lumileds and Epistar

July 13, 2004...Lumileds Lighting U.S., LLC of San Jose, California USA has announced the settlement of litigation against Epistar that began in August of last year (ref our coverage). The resulting allegations and counter allegations centered on USA Patent No. 5,008,718, which is owned by Lumileds. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Lumileds did report that the two companies have agreed to dismiss all claims and counterclaims in the lawsuit. In addition, as part of the settlement agreement, Lumileds is granting a limited license to Epistar that will enable that Taiwan manufacturer to "practice several patents in the field of absorbing-substrate AlInGaP LEDs." This particular patent, which dates back to the late 1980s at Hewlett Packard, from which Lumileds was originally spawned, is a key process that can produce a variety of colors including deep red, yellow, and green. Lumileds is noted for not only their outstanding white LEDs, but their full line of HB-LEDs in all colors (ref: our current editorial Lumileds Ramping for more perspective, revised from an original July 8th post).

Lumileds had also originally taken the dispute over patent number 5,008,718 first to United Epitaxy Company (UEC) and also to Citizen Electronics and Citizen's subsidiary, Cecol, basing their allegations on the fact that Epistar was importing and selling Epistar's AlGaInP LEDs. Those disputes were settled out of court. While the financial terms of the agreement with Epistar were not disclosed. Mike Holt, Lumileds CEO said, simply, “We are pleased that Epistar has acknowledged the value of this intellectual property.” Mike Holt also underscored in the brief news release, using similar language to that selected repeatedly now by Nichia (which is considered the nearest competitor in GaN-based white LED brightness and pleasing color to Lumileds), that "Lumileds holds more than 100 patents in the area of high-brightness LEDs and continues to pioneer the development of solid-state lighting technology. We will continue to enforce our intellectual property rights.." But typical of Lumileds, which has traditionally positioned themselves in a manner fitting their true leadership status in championing the field for everyone involved in it, Mike adds "... and to lead the industry in the enabling of never before possible lighting solutions.” Like we said in the revised close of the Lumileds Ramping editorial, "The fledgling Solid State Lighting (SSL) industry is literally lighting up the world! And it wouldn't have happened without the exceptional breadth and depth of our supply infrastructure."

What's New at GELcore?

July 14, 2004...As noted in the Emcore update, this issue, GELcore continues to maintain its profitability and its parents, GE and Emcore, are justifiably pleased. So what's new at GELcore in addition to being profitable? Various items, headed by the news that the Valley View, Ohio USA LED joint venture is taking a good hard look at Europe as a new frontier for LED traffic signals and signs. The young company noted that traffic product business in Europe grew 150% over last year. "We think Europe is the market of the future for LED traffic management solutions," says GELcore's President, Scott Hearn. "We want to earn a lot more business throughout Europe, and one of the ways we're going to do that is by delivering superior LED solutions to our customers. Our GE heritage allows us to rapidly engineer and design products to varying government specifications. We can deliver customized solutions at competitive price levels." Slated for later this year, GELcore intends to introduce selected European customers to its new GE LED Illuminated Street Sign System which joins a product line that includes the GE RX11 high visibility LED traffic signal, an energy-efficient, long-life LED product that eliminates the maintenance hassles and costs associated with conventional traffic signals that use incandescent lamps. Company news release.

GELcore has also introduced a GE Tetra LED lighting system that includes white, rounding out their broad spectrum of color offerings. Created for major market segments such as retail, restaurant and hospitality, the GE Tetra LED lighting system operates as a light engine in channel letter, reverse halo, box and cloud signage, as well as cove and accent lighting applications. "Our GE Tetra white LED system is the first white LED lighting system for signage applications to pass GELcore's stringent reliability tests and carry the GE name," says Joe Melchiors, GELcore product manager. "Now sign companies have a broad spectrum of colors to choose from, including white, in a system that installs quickly and easily. GE Tetra white is a win-win-win for distributors, OEMs and end-users." Company news release. More information on their newly introduced Tetra BT can be found on GELcore's highly informative website, www.gelcore.com, and example applications for this new energy-efficient LED border tube system, which is designed to replace neon in interior and exterior border lighting applications, includes gas station canopies, automotive dealerships, hospitality and restaurant applications, and cove and accent lighting.

European Solid State Lighting Project to Investigate Silicon Substrates for Blue Spectrum LEDs

July 12, 2004...An exciting Solid State Lighting (SSL) research project (which, by definition, means blue spectrum LEDs as the means of producing white light) is getting underway in Europe that involves Aixtron AG of Aachen, Germany. It is a three year project targeting the improvement of this critical group of advanced LEDs via the use of silicon substrates. It will be conducted by the Laboratory of Semiconductor Optics, Stepanov Institute of Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and is funded by the International Science & Technology Center in Russia (ISTC). The target of this new project is to improve the white LED performance and to explore silicon as a low cost alternative for substrates. As the SSL community is well aware, virtually all blue spectrum LEDs currently use either sapphire or silicon carbide substrates, which are smaller and more expensive than silicon. By employing silicon, the presumption would be to drastically reduce the LED costs which the European group highlights as a precondition for the introduction of LEDs in general lighting applications.

The group also points out that, "Worldwide, all major industrial nations run development programs for SSL based on the technology of LEDs and that SSL can save a significant amount of energy when replacing conventional incandescent lamps and, furthermore, its extremely long lifetime makes replacement of lamps nearly obsolete. Starting an LED project in Belarus is an important milestone in order to establish this promising new technology also in this region." Prof. Dr. Michael Heuken VP of Aixtron's Corporate Research & Development commented that, "We are delighted to participate in this interesting and challenging research project and looking very much forward to a good cooperation with our colleagues from the Laboratory of Semiconductor Optics of the Stepanov Institute in Belarus and the ITHE of the RWTH Aachen. We are convinced that this project will push the LED technology in Belarus forward." Company news release

Osram Adds New OLED Products for Graphic Displays

July 14, 2004...Osram Opto has announced a new addition to their Pictiva portfolio of products targeted for handheld and miniaturized applications. The newest
Pictiva graphic display product is an 80x48 pixel graphics display that rounds out the company’s full portfolio of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) products for flat-screen display applications and is specifically designed for handheld electronics and “wearable,” miniaturized applications. The rest of the line covers 128x64, 96x64 and 80x48. “The display industry is so dynamic and constantly produces technological improvements. As a result, we continue to expand our current product offerings and look ahead for the next innovation,” said Alfred Felder, OLED Unit Business Head, OSRAM Opto Semiconductors Inc. “Rounding out our Pictiva product line with the 80x48 pixel display has enabled us to provide a full range of products for the growing OLED display market.” The new, smaller size is ideal for integration into smaller handheld applications, such as cellular telephone sub-displays, MP3 players and other miniaturized portable applications and provides vivid color and contrast, video capabilities, a wide viewing angle, a thin profile and a power-efficient, reliable and fast response time. Company news release

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The McDonald Report
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Lumileds Ramping

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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