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Editorial: Alan Thompson Reports on BLUE 2005
... Our Sr. Technology Editor and longtime industry veteran, Dr. Alan Thompson, not only helped organize BLUE 2005, he was there in Taiwan all week gathering the news and filed the following report. I want to publicly thank Alan, Bob Walker and his staff at YEBY Associates, and my partner,...
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May 31, 2005...JDS Uniphase’s analog CATV and RF over fiber businesses apparently no longer
fits with the company’s objectives. JDS Uniphase of San Jose, California USA acquired Acterna, whose
testing and measurement equipment is used for the cable TV and DSL business. Understandably, analog cable does not fit
with a digital cable and DSL business. According to JDSU, the sale is just
part of the company's cost cutting measures. The same company however is a perfect
fit for Emcore who purchased it. Emcore Corporation of Somerset, New Jersey
USA, has acquired the analog cable TV (CATV) and radio frequency (RF) over fiber
specialty businesses from JDS Uniphase Corporation (JDSU). Emcore paid JDSU $1.5 million and has agreed to purchase between
$2.8 million and $3.8 million in components and parts. Emcore will assume some
open purchase orders for inventory components, and will pay JDS Uniphase a royalty on
licensed intellectual property. As part of the deal, Emcore and JDS Uniphase entered into a bilateral "preferred supplier" commercial agreement,
in which Emcore and JDSU will supply various optical components to each
other. Emcore has also hired a team of JDS Uniphase employees to continue the
marketing, sales, application engineering, and product design functions for
the acquired products. Emcore plans to soon establish a small design center
in northern Pennsylvania, near several major CATV product customers.
The product lines that are part of the agreement include: hybrid fiber coaxial
(HFC) 1550-nm broadcast transmitters, in both legacy and linearized optical
modulated designs, to link between cable network headends and hubs, 1550-nm
DWDM quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) transmitters, associated analog receivers,
1310-nm transmitters linking cable network hubs and nodes, amplifiers for extending
fiber network reach for FTTX applications, and radio frequency (RF) and microwave
over fiber specialty products for defense and satellite communications. Both
Emcore and JDSU are continuing to consolidate their optical businesses. Now
Emcore will sell analog cable and RF over fiber to some of the big cable companies
which were JDSU customers. Emcore and JDSU have chosen to ally themselves
to strengthen their positions in the volatile optical market. The question remains,
who will be left standing?
"This acquisition adds a valuable product portfolio and extremely
talented design and engineering team to our existing CATV, FTTX, and satellite
communications businesses," said Dr. Hong Hou, Vice President and
General Manager of Emcore's Ortel Division. "Emcore now offers complete
product solutions to OEMs in this communications market, and the acquisition
further validates our commitment to this industry with a best-of-breed product
portfolio, continued innovation, and customer support."
"Emcore is the ideal partner to continue the development, marketing
and sale of the JDSU analog CATV business," said David Gudmundson,
vice president of JDSU Corporate Development and Marketing. "This
agreement will provide continuity to our customers, will broaden EMCORE's offering
and will allow JDSU to focus on our core businesses." Company News Release Three Five Systems Receives Notice of Delisting From NYSEMay 31, 2005...Three Five Systems Inc. (TFS) has again received notice that its average daily
share price has fallen below $1.00, the minimum requirement for the New York Stock
Exchange (NYSE) in Section 802.01A of the NYSE Listed Company Manual. Other requirements
include average market capitalization of not less than $50 million over a 30-trading-day
period and stockholders' equity of not less than $50 million. On April 26 of this
year, the company also received notice of the same violation. At that time the Company received warning that it
must bring its share price and average share price back above $1.00 by October
25, 2005. The NYSE has requested that TFS submit business plan that demonstrates
how the company will be in compliance within the next 18 months. The NYSE will
provide written notice to the company if it determines to suspend trading and
delist the company’s stock after its review. TFS is currently evaluating
whether it will submit a business plan to the NYSE. The company is also looking
at its options regarding its potential delisting from the NYSE. (Ref: Form
8KA-Notice of Delisting or Transfer)
Skyworks and TriQuint Appoint Top Executives
CompoundSemi News StaffMay 26, 2005...Triquint Semiconductor Inc., of Hillsboro, Oregon USA, has appointed Stephanie
J. Welty as its Chief Financial Officer (CFO) effective June 1, 2005. Ms. Welty
will report to Ralph Quinsey, TriQuint's President and Chief Executive Officer.
Mr. Raymond A. Link, TriQuint's current Vice President of Finance and Administration
and CFO has resigned from his position with TriQuint effective June 1, 2005.
He will accept a senior executive position at an Oregon based technology company.
Mr. Link will remain at TriQuint through June 30 to ensure a smooth transition.
Ms. Welty joined TriQuint in 1994 and has served as Accounting Manager and Director
of Information Systems and was appointed Vice President of Finance in 1999.
Company
News Release
Skyworks Solutions, Inc. of Woburn, Massachusetts USA, a company that provides
systems solutions for mobile communications applications, announced that Bruce
J. Freyman has joined the company as vice president of worldwide operations
with responsibility for its global supply chain management and manufacturing
facilities, including its world-class assembly and test plant in Mexicali, Mexico,
and wafer fabrication sites in Newbury Park, California, and Woburn, Massachusetts
Freyman most recently served as president and chief operating officer of Amkor
Technology, one of the world's largest semiconductor assembly and test companies.
Company
News Release Spirit of Innovation Alive and Well at IEEE Design Competition Sponsored by Fairchild Semiconductor
CompoundSemi News StaffMay 27, 2005...Fairchild Semiconductors of South Portland, Main USA, a dominant player in the power electronics market, has for the fifth year in a row sponsored the IEEE student design competition. The company has helped ensure that the spirit of innovation is alive and well in Unite States universities. The design competition held at the Rochester Institute of Technology featured 24 teams from 16 Universities from the northeastern United States. A team from Boston University beat out the others with their entry-- a wireless system to detect free parking spaces in a complex parking lot.
"Fairchild applauds all the teams who participated in this competition that support the spirit of technical innovation," Malee Leeaphon, Fairchild's University Relations manager, said. "We're extremely pleased to sponsor an event, which stimulates the imagination of university students to develop electronic applications that may be the 'must have' appliances of tomorrow. This competition provides a valuable resource for the students, who will be the designers of the future." Company News Release CyOptics and Cray to Collaborate on Future Super Computer Data Transmission Demonstration
CompoundSemi News StaffMay 25, 2005...Engineers have long idealized “optical computing” as the future of high
speed computing because of its theorized ability to perform at the speed of light instead
of the speed of electric current. Cyoptics, a maker of InP chips, laser detector components, and a leading supplier of high-speed optical engines for broadband communication solutions will collaborate with Cray Inc., a leader in super computer design. They hope to demonstrate super-high
performance optical data transmission, which is an important part of the optical
computing ideal. Cyoptics has been awarded a study contract from Cray Inc. to
demonstrate optical data transmission for future generation supercomputers. Cyoptics
of Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania USA, hopes to demonstrate unprecedented data transmission
rates of hundreds of gigabits per second and sustained performance of one petaflop
(million billion calculations per second) on real-world applications by 2010.
These goals are part of Cray’s participation in DARPA’s high productivity
computer systems (HPCS) program.
“Next generation scientific computing system performance is limited
by the rate at which data may be exchanged between processors using conventional
copper-based technologies. Cray has long understood this fundamental limitation
and looks forward to working with CyOptics to overcome it in order to advance
high performance computing,” said Burton Smith, Chief Scientist of
Cray Inc.
“CyOptics’ technology leadership and precision manufacturing
enable us to pursue this key development needed to realize cost-effective, high-bandwidth
computing at large scale,” stated Ed Coringrato, President and CEO
of CyOptics. “This demonstration will make use of next generation
uncooled InP laser technology, Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) and high
precision automated assembly processes to demonstrate cost-effective, ultrahigh-speed
bi-directional data transfer between co-located computing chassis.” 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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Commentary & Perspective...
Alan Thompson Reports on BLUE 2005
May 22, 2005...Our Sr. Technology Editor and longtime industry veteran, Dr. Alan Thompson,
not only helped organize BLUE 2005, he was there in Taiwan all week gathering
the news and filed the following report. I want to publicly thank Alan, Bob
Walker and his staff at YEBY Associates, and my partner, Tom Griffiths, President
and CEO of CompoundSemi Online. They all did a terrific job making this the
best BLUE ever. The hard part will be topping themselves next year! We'll be
reporting details of the meet over the next few weeks, but this overall report
from Alan is a must read. ---Jo Ann McDonald
Just completed, BLUE 2005 was held in Hsinchu, Taiwan, May 16-18, 2005. This
year’s theme, "LED Technologies Driving the Solid State Lighting
Revolution" lived up to expectations by covering the world markets
for HB-LEDs, reviewing various national solid state lighting programs and looking
at emerging technologies and applications. Three of the talks addressed IP and
financial market issues, a new and newsworthy topic this year.
The meeting was opened by co-chairs Dr Y.S.Liu of ITRI, Dr Robert Walker of
YEBY Associates, and Dr Y.M Yu of KOPTI (standing in for Dr Tae-Il Kim who was
unable to attend at the last minute). The lead speaker, one of four keynoters,
was Dr Robert Steele of Strategies Unlimited, who gave his usual detailed and
well documented account of the worldwide HB-LED marketplace. Key points were
a slowing growth rate in revenues as the cell phone market matures, falling
ASPs generally, and new markets opening but not quickly enough to keep CAGRs
in the 30 to 40% range. The outlook remains upbeat however with solid state
lighting promising some huge markets a few years out. Asif Anwar of Strategy
Analytics focused his talk on short wavelength laser diodes. While the overall
market is currently quite small and split among a variety of applications, he
predicts rapid growth (CAGR of 97%) dominated by next generation DVD using violet
(405 nm) GaN based devices.
The analyst talks were followed by detailed country reviews for Taiwan, Korea,
Japan and China. Taiwan continues to grow its dominant market share, while Korea
and China both show strong improvement. All have national programs with similar
broad goals of enabling general solid state lighting over the next decade. Especially
exciting was the appearance of China's Wu Ling, General Secretary of the China
SSL Alliance, because it was her first trip to Taiwan from Beijing.
George Mueller, Founding Chairman and CEO of Color Kinetics, gave the second
keynote with an inspiring look at both his company and his view of the future
of lighting. They have concentrated on the upper part of the lighting pyramid
(high value, niche volume), starting with color. He reported that LED based
systems have now become accepted as the best performers in this segment, and
gave numerous examples. They are now addressing the similar markets for white.
The achievement of 100 lm/W efficiencies, already shown in R&D, will make
white LED systems very attractive to designers and result in much broader adoption.
He sees this happening in the 2007-9 time frame. He gave the audience his list
of 7 "must have" properties if they are to successfully address this
market.
Dr Volker Haerle (Osram Opto Semiconductors) addressed the newer markets opening
up for HB-LEDs, most of which need high power, from a producer’s perspective.
The largest are automobile exterior lighting, including headlamps, LCD backlighting
and projection systems. Brent York (TIR Systems) concentrated on the architectural
and lighting applications from a system manufacturer’s viewpoint, and also
detailed the new Lexel technology, which was recently
disclosed in these pages. The latter takes a big step toward a self contained
"standard" subsystem that can be used by luminaire manufacturers who
then don’t need detailed knowledge of LEDs but can still design and build
products that will perform predictably and reliably. Dr H.S.Chung of Dongbu
Anam Semiconductor gave a comprehensive survey of applications being addressed
by Korean companies in particular, with LCD backlighting showing strong growth.
The audience was particularly excited to hear from another keynoter, Ms Patricia
Martone, of the Fish and Neave IP group of the law firm Ropes and Gray. It is
difficult to get a lawyer to discuss the topic of IP openly, so Patricia’s
presentation was unusual and informative. She talked about litigation in the
semiconductor industry in general and then zeroed in on the LED arena, talking
about the pros and cons of patents, cross-licensing and litigation. Everyone
in the room had an interest in these issues and we appreciated her openness.
Talks by Hans Mosesmann of Moors and Cabot and Jed Dorsheimer of Adams Harkness
and Hill, addressed industry and IP issues from the investment and financial
analysts’ perspectives. They brought up many issues and enlightened the
attendees, most of whom were from LED producing and consuming companies. Our
news and editorial people will be reviewing these IP-related talks in more detail
in the coming weeks in these pages.
The conference closed with several talks covering the technology and applications
of high power and white LEDs, including epi materials, phosphors, and packaging.
These reinforced earlier speakers’ predictions of a growing number of applications
for higher power devices, particularly white, and the huge promise of solid
state lighting coming closer each year, fueled by advances in performance and
cost. Two companies, Intematix and Phosphor Tech, introduced new phosphors,
offering a path for newer device manufacturers to avoid cross-licensing or litigation
problems with more established players. Developments such as these can only
help expand the field and help grow markets
For those who attended BLUE 2005, it was a wonderful opportunity to hear industry
leaders talk about markets and technology and to network with the movers and
shakers. All the speakers, sponsors and exhibitors deserve our thanks for helping
make this year's event be even more successful than BLUE 2004. If you couldn’t
make it this year, be sure to start making plans to be in Hsinchu next May for
BLUE 2006!
Alan Thompson, Senior Technology Editor
If you have news or
views to share about the compound semiconductor, LED or solid
state lighting industries
contact our Publisher, Tom Griffiths
His direct tel in Austin is +1-512-257-9888
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