CompoundSemi Online - The Original Compound Semiconductor Industry Newspaper

April 28, 2005...Solid state GaN blue lasers have been an especially bright and colorful topic (literally and figuratively) in these pages since 1995. This was when Shuji Nakamura made his major breakthroughs in R&D that moved attitudes and aspirations away from ZnSe. Ten year later, here we are going into our Third Annual BLUE event (www.blue2005.com), and the top news of the week in the blue spectrum lane is once again GaN blue lasers. And it's exciting news. Two vertically integrated Japanese-based competitive giants on the blue laser foodchain, Sony and Toshiba, are realizing that having two separate specifications, or "standards", above the blue laser diode level, is indeed counterproductive. (Ref: April 25 headline news).

Those of you attending BLUE 2005 in Taiwan May 16-18 will learn the latest from the blue laser lane from Asif Anwar, Director of the GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service at Strategy Analytics, who will be speaking at 9:30am Tuesday, May 17th. But the news about a possible compromise provides an opportunity to call your attention to the fact that blue lasers are an important part of BLUE 2005. The same basic ingredients go into making a blue laser diode that go into the recipe for a blue spectrum LED. The key ingredient is GaN. I've been told that the difference between creating an exceptional blue LED and a mediocre blue laser isn't that much... but I suspect it's more complicated than that.

People new to our field have asked "How did the event get its name?" My partner and the head of CompoundSemi Online Inc., Tom Griffiths, came up with that. In and around the turn of the century, GaN blue spectrum LEDs and laser diodes had much in common, namely, leading edge gallium nitride (GaN) based compound semiconductor material science and manufacturing technology. In 2002, Shuji Nakamura, our industry's prime GaN blue spectrum breakthrough artist, left Japan and Nichia to begin his teaching and research profession at the University of California's Santa Barbara campus (UCSB) in the USA (with GaN gurus such as Umesh Mishra and Steven DenBaars). During this time, Shuji's former company was starting to crank out major volumes of GaN-based blue and violet laser diodes. About the same time, Taiwan was under the threat of sinking with so many GaN MOCVD reactors coming online to make blue spectrum LEDs (blue, green, violet, white, etc... i.e. the "blue spectrum."). Tom and I agreed that the simple term "BLUE" said it all and would stick in people's minds for many years to come. Obviously, it has. We're expecting a sell-out crowd at BLUE 2005 this year.

Also around that time, business was virtually collapsing in the telecom sector, so we had fun with the name "BLUE" and used a play on words with the hook "Celebration of the Blues." We even had a rock and blues band perform the night of the banquet. Although business was severely down for most compound semi industry companies at that point, Taiwanese LED makers (and Lumileds and Cree in the USA) were the exception. Despite the fact that many Asians couldn't travel to the USA due to the SARS flu epidemic, most everyone in the compound semi blue spectrum supply chain attended BLUE 2003 in Dallas, Texas.

Shuji and Steve DenBaars were there. Someone from each of the Big 5 spoke. The major researchers of advanced LEDs and laser diodes were there, and all the supply chain was represented. The GaN substrate developers attended in especially high numbers. George Brandes who was then with ATMI (prior to his group being purchased by Cree) gave an excellent, evenhanded presentation of the state of the art in GaN substrate and GaN epiwafer development. We had a great time. We also gave out our first Pioneer Awards. The event was so spectacular. Because there were so many that could not attend in person due to SARS or hard times, we posted audio and slides of the presentations along with still pictures. And given that I had the pleasure of crafting the Pioneer Awards, we did a pictorial layout of that special evening online as well. Take a look. See what you missed. Here's the link to those BLUE 2003 posts.

By the next year, 2004, the scales had tilted so obviously toward Asia that we decided to move the event to Hsinchu, Taiwan. Smart move. Go where the majority of the action is. Blue spectrum LEDs were taking off and Taiwan, China and Korea were starting to literally take over the die manufacturing and packaging field. Standards were the least of our worries. We couldn't even agree on basic metrics, but that wasn't stopping the supply lines from flowing at full throttle. Things were happening fast and CompoundSemi Online was smack in the middle of the action. BLUE 2004 was wildly successful. No rock and blue bands nor Pioneer Awards, unfortunately, but the business networking was exceptional and everyone had a great time getting to know one another better. Blue lasers took a bit of a back seat as blue LEDs skyrocketed to fame.

Throughout the past five years, blue lasers have moved to the point where application news outstripped development news. Except for the major and highly influential users being based in Hollywood in the USA, virtually all the blue laser diode action was in Japan. And when a technology becomes essentially a Japanese monopoly, well... you're simply not going to hear very much about it outside hardcore research conclaves. The improvements are in the materials, like GaN substrates, and we do hear from some of those companies, especially those based in the USA. But the business really revolves around Japan. In addition to Nichia... Sony, Fujitsu, Xerox, NEC, Matsushita, and Toyoda Gosei came on the radar scope as blue laser makers in the 2000 timeframe. One way or the other, due to the lock-on they have with the blue laser IP, everyone has to go through Nichia, which I feel accounts account for the lack of hard information. Many others say they're making blue lasers, but what that actually means, and how far along they really are is something else. We do know that Cree continues to improve their GaN on SiC proprietary approach in the USA... and they have George Brandes and his team on their side now, which means bulk GaN substrates will eventually come into play... so Cree remains an interesting prospect. Also, various people are looking into GaN substrates for blue spectrum LDs because that will be a way around the Nichia patents.

I believe that because there have been two separate standards camps lobbying the DVD Forum in Japan, that's been the major inhibiting factor to other blue laser diode developers. Nichia's blue lasers are expensive, and lowering the price has been a key issue. The performance is there, but systems integrators always want to lower the costs of their basic components. In the Fall of last year, Nichia was selling their blue lasers for around 100,000 yen. Around the same time, NEC Compound Semiconductor Devices Ltd. was reported to be near mass production capability with parent NEC Electronics (and due to sample by now, with NEC Kansai Ltd. producing the parts and outsourcing assembly domestically). Toshiba had developed production technology reportedly lower in cost to about half the cost of Nichia's. And Matsushita was entering in-house production along with Sony and Sanyo Electric with Sharp following suit. Sony and Nichia have a patent-sharing arrangement on blue lasers, while Toshiba, Sanyo and others are said to have developed proprietary technologies, but my guess is that there's quiet negotiation with Nichia all the way up and down the line given Nichia controls about 800 patents surrounding GaN blue lasers. Those fabricated on sapphire substrates, that is. As mentioned above, blue GaN substrates are coming into play now, with another major Japanese company, Sumitomo Electric (SEI) as the current front-runner, with companies like Kyma in South Carolina USA rising in the pact. More and more blue spectrum LD manufacturers are sampling SEI and Kyma GaN, and there are a other good companies getting good at growning GaN.

Asif Anwar will be able to tell you more about the fast-changing blue spectrum LD scene during his talk at BLUE 2005. My bet is that with the atmosphere changing to hybrid solutions and win-wins among the main Japanese players, that the issue for 2005-2008 will revolve around lower costs of main components, such as the GaN blue laser die. That means squeezing costs down and improving lifetimes, the burden of which falls on the crystal growers. We'll see how it all pans out.

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