Sale Date for Oriol White LED Patents Set for Feb. 3rdJanuary 5, 2005...As initially covered in our Nov.
16th headline news announcing the auctioning off of Oriol's very interesting
and uniquely core white LED-related IP, the date for that auction has now been
set and a minimum bidding price has been set at $1.5 million. The date and starting
time of the auction will be February 3, 2005 at 5pm, Pacific Standard Time.
The sale location is at the offices of Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps
which is at 121 Spear Street, Suite 200 in San Francisco, California USA and
telephonic bidding arrangements will be allowed. All one has to do to participate
is to contact Mey SaePhan at tel: +1 (415) 356-4691. The case number is 03-56308.
Bidders also have to be ready with some serious money as the bidding will be
in increments of $50,000 (USD). Initial bids must be also be accompanied by
$100,000 (USD) bank certified funds. Here's the link
to detailed information. Note that Carol Wu is the trustee for this unprecedented
bankruptcy case (unprecedented for our industry, in that this is an IP auction
of truly leading edge, wafer scale white LED technology). Carol can be reached
directly at tel: +1 408 404-7040 and email: cwu@cwutrustee.com for general auction
information. For information on the IP up for auction, the contacts are IP lawyers
Song Jung, Esq or Mark Kresloff, Esq. at McKenna, Long & Aldridge who can
be contacted at tel +1 202 496-7500. Content continues for LIGHTimes SecondPage members...
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Strategies Unlimited Posts Agenda for Annual Strategies In Light Meet
Jo Ann McDonald, Founding EditorJanuary 5, 2005...Make your reservations now for the annual "must attend" Strategies
In Light (SIL) conference which will be held at the San Francisco Airport
Marriott Hotel in beautiful Burlingame,
California USA (I know of Burlingame's beauty first hand as Burlingame
is this founding editor's old home town! I also had the pleasure of consulting
to Strategies Unlimited and naming and helping coordinate the show when SIL
first conceived of SIL six years ago). Strategies Unlimited's intrepid GaN
and HB-LED guru, Bob Steele, has again put together an excellent agenda
which you can view via this link. To your viewing left, in this issue's McDonald Report, is an interview with Bob on what to expect at this year's SIL conference. The Tuesday/Wednesday full day sessions
start with his annual market forecast, then a full review of applications
and trends, includes country activities and national programs, and then winds
up tackling the technical issues head on. PennWell's SIL will also feature
two pre-conference workshops this year. The morning workshop on Monday, February
7th will be on Optical System Design for LEDs followed by an afternoon workshop
on Drivers for LEDs. So mark your calendar and pick up the phone or email your
reservations. If this meet is anything like the first one six years ago, you
better reserve your seat early. As is so often the case with this sort of top flight executive
meet, the real action is usually in the hallways and at the breaks and meals
so generously provided for by the roster of SIL
sponsors, which you'll note includes our LIGHTimes and SolidStateLighting.net.
A comprehensive promo with hotlinks to whatever you need to get your reservations
in on time is at the bottom of this newsletter. Our business and editorial
staff looks forward to seeing you there! Keith Evans Becomes President/CEO of Kyma
Jo Ann McDonaldJanuary 5, 2005...Update your contact list as longtime industry, really cool guy, nitride
material growth expert and wide bandgap (WBG) community catalyst, Keith Evans
Ph.D. packs his bags and heads for his new assignment in Research Triangle Park
and starts to settle into his new assignment as President and CEO of Kyma
Technologies, Inc. of Raleigh, North Carolina USA. Yes, he's really
all those things! Keith joins a strong technical team that remains headed by co-founders Mark Williams who serves as COO (Mark hailed originally from NCSU and started Kyma with his famed NCSU professor Jerry Cuomo) and Andrew (Drew) Hanser who also got his start in GaN-related substrate technology with NCSU's wide bandgap guru Professor Bob Davis, who is now at Carnegie Mellon. Keith has over 20 years experience in the compound semi
industry and has held several key executive positions from operations, technology,
and business development. He began his colorful career at the famed US Air Force
Research Labs at Wright Pat AFB where he led a group of scientists and engineers
focused on advancing the technology of MBE for novel CS device applications.
Keith then moved into the commercial sector via stints in epi wafer supply (QED/IQE)
epi growth equipment (Veeco's MBE equipment arm) and in laser manufacturing
via SLI. His most recent post was serving Crystal IS as Sr. VP, Business Development
and as their Chief Marketing Officer. Keith generously gives of his time to
help advance the industry as a whole and is well known as a highly regarded
WBG technology leader and WBG community catalyst. He organized our recent Wide
Bandgap Business Opportunities Workshop as a prelude to the annual CS
Outlook conference which was held Dec. 6-8th in Dallas, Texas. (The online
post of those proceedings will be available shortly to Outlook attendees, by
the way. Keith has received many inquiries asking for the workshop slides. Contact
tomg@compoundsemi.com for your password). We would like to publicly thank
Keith again for the excellent job he did bringing the WBG Biz Opps Workshop
together and wish this WBG leader the very best in his new role guiding Kyma
to its next stage in GaN substrate development. If you want to contact Keith,
his new coordinates are: Keith R. Evans, Ph.D., President & CEO, Kyma Technologies,
Inc., 8829 Midway West Road, Raleigh, NC 27617 USA, General company phone: 919-789-8880
and his new email is: evans@kymatech.com. We had a great indepth chat with Keith, Mark and Drew today as Keith logged in his first 1.5 days at the Kyma help, and that conversation will be featured in an upcoming McDonald Report underscoring the remarkable progress Kyma is already making in their selling their two inch GaN wafers to blue laser, LED and electronic device developers (yes, these are the real thing! Not just layers of GaN) with larger diameter substrates wafers in development.
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Cree Sets Next Earnings Report for Jan. 13thJanuary 5, 2005...While we don't normally cover the quarterly conference call of the publicly
held companies, Cree's position in the compound semi and SSL industries
is so unique and pivotal that the Durham, North Carolina USA traditionally becomes
the exception to any rule. And Cree's earnings calls always reveal something
new and illuminating about the blue spectrum sector we traditionally champion
in these pages. So mark your calendar to tune in Thursday, January 13th, to
hear what Cree's President and CEO, Chuck Swoboda, has to say about how things
faired for Cree in the closing months of 2004. The call updating financial analysts
will take place live at 5pm Eastern Standard Time in the USA and will be webcast
and archived for replay through January 27th. To access the call either live
or as replay, simply go to Cree's website at www.cree.com
and click on the Investor Relations section, then click on the icon for the
webcast. January 5, 2005...Seoul Semiconductor
(SSC) has heretofore maintained a low profile in the USA, until recently, but
this major Korean LED packaging house is quickly coming becoming a very important
company to the Solid State Lighting (SSL) industry the more we learn about them
and the more of their people we have the pleasure of getting to know. SSC most
recently announced
that they have developed an LED lamp for AC power. The chip can be used in connection
with a general AC power by only one light source. SSC plans to supply this chip
through a packaging process through LED for the illumination market. Meanwhile,
SSC has filed for a patent of this chip and announced to plans to hold a product
demonstration in January 2005. SSC kindly contacted us here at SSL.net
and LIGHTimes to publicize their new lamp, and as we begin our association
with this company, we started doing what we always do with a company new to
our pages, and took a close look at their very impressive website and talked
to a few folks who have had the pleasure of talking with the at shows such as
Light Fair and Light+Building. Content continues for LIGHTimes SecondPage members... TI Leads the Way in Corporate South Asia Tsunami Relief EffortsJanuary 3, 2005...Representative of caring USA semiconductor industry corporations, Texas Instruments
of Dallas, Texas USA announced
on December 30th that it was making a $500,000 donation to the American Red
Cross International Response Fund for immediate and emergency care for victims
of South Asia’s devastating tsunami. The company is also matching dollars
donated by its employees for the same cause. “Our hearts go out to the
many victims of this terrible tragedy,” said Rich Templeton, TI President
and CEO. “I join TIers around the world in offering prayers and condolences
to the many who have lost so much.” TI operates globally in more than
25 countries including several impacted by the tsunami, but no TI sites or employees
were affected, and operations continue as normal. TI employees in India, Malaysia
and Singapore collected clothing, blankets, linens and other necessities that
have been shipped to the worst-hit families. Additionally, diversity initiatives
across TI are planning their own fundraising activities to benefit those in
the region.
If your company is in a position to help... among the many good agencies
directing resources to this disaster, we highly recommend sending donations
to either UNICEF, which is the United Nations
Children's Fund, and the American Red Cross.
UNICEF has issued an $81 million appeal,
it has already launched a major effort to identify unaccompanied children in
the area, and has already sent five planeloads of UNICEF supplies to Indoneasia
and Dri Lanka. Governed by volunteers and supported by community donations,
the American Red Cross is dedicated to
saving lives and helping people prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies
throughout the world. Through its 1.2 million volunteers and 30,000 employees,
the Red Cross annually mobilizes relief to families affected by more than 67,000
disasters, trains almost 12 million people in lifesaving skills and exchanges
more than 1 million emergency messages between U.S. military service personnel
and their families. The Red Cross is the largest supplier of blood and blood
products to more than 3,000 hospitals across the nation and also assists victims
of international disasters and conflicts at locations worldwide.
Omron Donates Almost $1 Million Towards Asian Tsunami DamageJanuary 5, 2005...Following the lead of companies such as Texas Instruments (ref.
our Jan. 3rd post), Omron Corporation of Kyoto, Japan a leader in automation,
sensing and control technology that employs 26,000 people worldwide, has generously
donated one hundred million yen through the Japan Community for UNICEF
for victims of the Asian tsunami following the earthquake off Indonesia. Additional
pledges from local Omron offices and affiliated companies will also be donated
through the Japan Community for UNICEF.
JCN news release Super 3G Standard Embraced by 26 Cellphone Service Companies
CompoundSemi News StaffJanuary 5, 2005...Agreement to work on a unified standard for anything related to the advanced compound
semi industry is good news, and the fact that 26 cellular phone service companies
and data communications equipment manufacturers in the USA, Asia, and Europe,
led by NTT, Cingular Wireless , China Mobile Communications and device makers
like NEC, Alcatel and Simens makes it sound like a probably reality. According
to an indepth story
carried over Nikkei Net, the Super 3G standard is in the making and is
estimated to become available in 2009, so if you're not already designing to
it, you probably should. Super 3G evidently allows transmission of high resolution
video instantaneously, offering speeds of 30-100 megabits per second, which
is evidently as fast as current fiberoptic broadband service. Super 3G cell
phones would also gain greater resolution in their video transmission (shades
of Star Trek communicators... and beyond). The move to Super 3G true standards
should also increase development and commercialization of handsets with larger
LCD screens for games and movie viewing as well as handsets with video camera
functions. But wait, there's more. The move is also expected, by companies like
DoCoMo, to up their investment in base station upgrades... and as we learned
at this year's CS Outlook, the entry
of GaN electronic devices into base stations means that those shacks you see
at the base of the cellular towers would be reduced to a little box at the base
of the tower. So there's hope for telecom after all, and it's looking like it
will be driven by GaN. Skyworks to Supply Transceivers to Chi MeiJanuary 5, 2005...Skyworks Solutions of Woburn, Massachusetts USA has announced that Taiwan's
Chi Mei Communication Systems, Inc. will leverage Skyworks' revolutionary SKY74117
DCR(TM) RF transceiver as it ramps its next-generation handsets. Chi Mei is
a leading original design manufacturer (ODM) that intends to develop these phones
for customer distribution across Asia. The Skyworks transceiver incorporates
basically all the required transmit and receive chain functionality in a single
chip. "Chi Mei is pleased to expand upon its longstanding relationship
with Skyworks. Our decision to design-in their RF solution is a testament to
the quality of Skyworks' products and their ability to accelerate our time to
market," said Calvin Chi, president of Chi Mei. "Skyworks is
proud to be part of Chi Mei's enabling technology. By radically simplifying
the RF section and freeing critical board space, our customers can add a wide
variety of high-value capabilities, such as embedded cameras, larger displays
and other multimedia features," said Mohy F. Abdelgany, VP and business
director, RF Solutions at Skyworks. "This unique approach provides customers
such as Chi Mei with significant benefits today, while also allowing for the
easy migration to EDGE and WCDMA applications." 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
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