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Editorial: Crystal IS Making The Big Turn
... With an additional $5 million in venture funding, it looks like Crystal IS of Watervliet, New York is ready to make a serious impact on the future of the Nitride-related electronics and high end lighting markets. As noted in our news story, this issue, Crystal IS was founded in...
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September 29, 2004...At the Sept. 17th Nichia
LED seminar in New York City, attendees found a little blue book in their
gift bag, along with LED samples, an LED flashlight and other giveaways and
handouts. The book, titled "Blue Light Emitting Diode," was
authored by Toshio Ito of Themis Co. Ltd. and carried the subtitle "Invented
by Nichia Corporation and Its Young Engineers." Only 165 pages in length,
well-written and fairly non-technical, a copy of the little book found its way
to me and was a very quick and interesting read. The only glaring technical
flaw was calling GaAs "Gallium Arsenic" when the community knows it's
"Gallium Arsenide." The author definitely got "MOCVD" right.
Evidently just off the press, with an August 2004 print date, it essentially
tells Nichia's side of the story about "the invention" or "the
discovery" of bright, long-lasting GaN based blue spectrum LEDs and laser
diodes. The book is obviously a public rebuttal of the now precedent-setting
and controversial lower court decision in Tokyo awarding Shuji Nakamura 20 billion
Japanese yen (appx. $188 million USA. Ref: our Jan.
30, 2004 coverage). The ruling has since gone to appeal to an upper
court in Japan. For those wanting to get hold of a copy, we've found the link
to purchase the Japanese version of the book. (Go to Themis' second page of book listings). We're still looking for an online
acces to obtain the English translation version, which does exist, and which our editorial
staff has read in its entirety. Content continues for LIGHTimes SecondPage members... Crystal IS Scores $5 Million Venture FundingSeptember 28, 2004...AlN substrate developer, Crystal IS of Watervliet, New York USA has closed
on $5 million of Series A venture funding. Investing in the innovative young
RPI-associated company that has made serious progress in the manufacture of
ultra-low defect density native aluminum nitride (AlN) single crystal substrates,
are ARCH Venture Partners, JVP, 3i, Harris & Harris Group, Inc., and a local
New York investor, Walt Robb. As a result of the financing, Keith Crandell from
ARCH, Zeljka Matutinovic from JVP and Sean Brownlee from 3i will join the Board
of Directors of Crystal IS’. One of the prime reasons this group has hitched
to the Crystal IS star is that nitride crystal substrates are now making important
inroads in stoplights, military applications, biomedical, information technology,
wireless communication, display lighting, as well as demonstrating significant
promise as future DVD and high power microwave devices. AlN substrates in general,
and Crystal IS' low defect substrates in particular, are gradually taking over
niche applications where the specs are especially tight and demanding. The company
is seeing special interest in four device sectors: UV LEDs and lasers, piezo
transducers (such as those being worked on by Michael Shur's group at RPI),
as high power RF transistors for military applications, and... depending on
the demands of the specs, as devices in white lighting, especially deep UV as
in DARPA's SUVOS program.The company is seeing special interest in four device sectors: UV LEDs and lasers for UV germicidal irradiation, bioagent and chemical sensing, white lighting research, and certain military applications (e.g., those anticipated under DARPA SUVOS), high power RF transistors for wireless base station and certain military applications, and next generation surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices (such as those being worked on by Michael Shur's group at RPI).
"We have assembled an exceptional technical team that has worked tirelessly
to grow our company and the potential for native aluminum nitride based commercial
applications. This investment leverages our success to date and will help us
to accelerate our technology and product roadmaps, expand our substrate production
capacity and quality, and further drive our collaborative device development
activities,” said Leo Schowalter, Crystal IS' President and CEO. Crystal
IS was founded in 1997 by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) physics professors
Glen Slack and Leo Schowalter. The company is located in the RPI Incubator Center,
which is well known for its technical services, support, and success rate for
startup companies. Albany NanoTech at the University at Albany has also provided
Crystal IS with strategic assistance including access to downstream semiconductor
materials processing capabilities. Crystal IS has a strong base of academic,
corporate, and government support for its technology. Company
news release
More Industry LayoffsSeptember 29, 2004...We're all getting pretty tired of seeing that headline, but the reality is
that even more "adjustments" continue to be underway as companies
keep cutting back to the quick. Trick is not to cause bleeding. The latest companies
to quietly be laying off people are MBE equipment Riber of France and laser
maker Alfalight of Madison, Wisconsin in the USA. While no numbers were divulged
by Riber, IOP's print magazine, Compound Semiconductor, reported,
"As a result of the lackluster performance, the company is to reduce its
workforce and production expenses, partly by concentrating its operations onto
a single site." Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, 16 of Alfalight's current 38 member
workforce will be let go on September 30th. The layoffs range from senior Ph.D.s
to production staff members. And some of the bigger players are again in cutback
mode. Motorola, for example, is axing 1000 people as it nears completion of
spinning off Freescale. And Agere, which is now down to 6,600 people will cut
another 500 from its ranks soon and close its Florida plant (ref. Reuters
coverage) using the same rationale as TI and Intel of late, that the
culprit is the inventory buildup in the telecom and wireless side. As Dave Kang,
an analyst with Roth Capital Partners put it, "The industry went ahead
of itself and now we're seeing a correction." Actually, a number of
companies are closing shop in Florida as that USA state continues to get hammered
by major hurricanes. As Florida author, humorist, and popular columnist, Carl
Hiaasen explained, with his usual wit, "The hurricane's are Mother
Nature's annual eviction notice." Vishay Makes A Colorful Splash with Six Colors of Bright LEDsSeptember 29, 2004...Vishay, a huge global company now employing 27,000 employees worldwide, is
making its presence known in the ultra high bright LED market, and they're doing
it by introducing six different colors of new surface mount LEDs that provide
luminous intensities ranging from 13 mcd to 80 mcd. The device family comes
in a small SMD form factor and feature ultra-miniature dimensions of 1.6 mm
by 0.8 mm and a low height profile of 0.6 mm. A list of each part number, color,
wavelength and brightness levels are included the company
news release. Content continues for LIGHTimes SecondPage members... 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...
Crystal IS Making The Big TurnSeptember 28, 2004...With an additional $5 million in venture funding, it looks like Crystal IS
of Watervliet, New York is ready to make a serious impact on the future of the
Nitride-related electronics and high end lighting markets. As noted in our news
story, this issue, Crystal IS was founded in 1997 by RPI professors Leo Schowalter
and Glen Slack. Glen, known in the nitride community as The Father of Crystalline
AlN (for his work at GE in the 1970s), summed up the pride that obviously
is being felt through the young company, and by its new venture backers. Glen,
who continues to serve as Chief Scientist of Crystal IS commented on the occasion of closing
the funding... “It is great to see this technology develop to the point
where we are poised to make a significant impact on commercial markets. This
investment will help us to address our many opportunities more vigorously and
to succeed more rapidly.”
We're very pleased for Crystal IS has they take this next major step in the
development of their company. Longtime followers of our CompoundSemi Online
activities will recall that Leo was our lead instructor at CS Outlook in 2001
for our GaN 101 workshop
and video. This year, Keith Evans, Crystal IS' Senior VP, Business Development
and Chief Marketing Officer will be organizing our pre-conference workshop titled
Wide Bandgap Business Opportunities which will be held on Monday, Dec.
6th, before the annual CS Outlook Conference
in Dallas, Texas.
Now that Crystal has closed this round of funding, what are the opportunities
they'll be addressing? First, you have to note who else is serving on that Board
of Directors. None other than Hong Hou, VP of Emcore who is probably one of
the greatest crystal growers of all times, and Tom Hierl, founder of QED and
former CTO of IQE. Together with Keith Crandell, Zeljka Matutinovic, Sean Brownlee
and the top managers at Crystal IS, this is an exceptionally strong board. Crystal
IS intends to use the funds to accelerate their technology and product roadmaps,
expand their substrate production capacity and quality, and further drive their
collaborative device development activities. And therein lies the power behind
this company... their collaborative activities.
Crystal IS is especially close to RPI and Michael Shur. Michael was one of
our original Pioneer
Award winners in 2003 at the original BLUE event. Michael was the
foremost modeling expert of GaN devices and the commercial company he co-founded,
SET., has made major strides in GaN based electronic device production on AlN
and his current work at RPI in piezo transducers involves the use of Crystal
IS' AlN substrates. Plus, Crystal IS is physically located in the RPI incubator
center. The rate the company... and the sector... is growing, Crystal IS will
likely relocate within the next 2 years to accommodate its aggressive growth
plans. Crystal IS’ partners SET (which
also started as an RPI incubator company and which relocated to Columbia, South
Carolina) and PARC have already
shown substantial benefits of Crystal IS’ native AlN for RF transistor
and UV emitter devices. Albany NanoTech at the University at Albany has also
provided Crystal IS with strategic assistance, and the company is considered
an important part of various DoD development initiatives.
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... |
