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July 18, 2005...Ricoh, the Japanese company that is largely known for its copiers, has developed
a way to manufacture optical disks with a capacity of 100GB on one side, according
to a story
in Nikkei Net Interactive. This is twice the capacity of Sony’s 45GB Blu-Ray
technology and significantly more than twice the capacity of the somewhat lower
capacity 15 GB HD-DVD technology. According to the article, Ricoh plans on
quickly producing the 100GB optical disks. While other electronics makers
have reportedly prototyped 100GB optical disks, the company claims these are the
first to be achieved on a single platter. Ricoh's approach apparantly is similar to the two current competing standards
for next generation DVDs in that it uses blue spectrum laser diodes, the report specifically mentioning a violet laser, which we presume to be a LD. Nichia remains the leading supplier of blue spectrum LDs, violet being the most popular choice for next gen DVD applications. However, Ricoh's disk is read only and reportedly allows 40% smaller data areas by producing bumps
on the surface of only 90nm in width. The article says that the optical disk could
record 20 2-hour movies, or 9 hours of HD video on a single side. Reuters Reports on What It Calls First LED Street Lights
Scott McMahanJuly 18, 2005...In a Reuters' news story that was rebroadcast around the world including the CNN website, the author claimed that Philips, the lighting company from the Netherlands, has introduced the first LED-based street lamps. What's most troubling is not the claim of being the first, but not having any qualifiers on the claim. Perhaps they were the first in something. For example they might be the first LED based street lights in the world... to be used on that particular street in the Netherlands. However, the described street lamps are by no means the first ever. Even a search of the Philips web site shows other installations including a bridge in London. This is totally discounting the many smaller companies that have been selling the LED technology for street lights for years. A number of companies including Sharp Electronics have gone as far as introducing solar powered, LED-based street lights. Carmanah has a line of street lights with LED technology, and so does Leotek, a certified manufacturer of Lumileds’ Luxeon technology. In any case, feel free to point to my article for the people reading Reuters and getting the wrong idea. It was one of the applications discussed at Strategies in Light back in February. This is a good demonstration of how much we have to educate the public about LED lighting solutions before LED lighting becomes widely adopted by consumers for general lighting applcations. Fairchild Semiconductor Wins AwardJuly 13, 2005...Fairchild Semiconductor with headquarters in South Portland, Maine USA, has
received the Prime Minister’s Award in South Korea for excellence in occupational
health and safety. Fairchild has an accident free record for the last six years.
The award was presented in Seoul by Dae-Hwan Kim, the minister of labor of South
Korea.
"We're very pleased to receive this most recent honor,"
said C.S. Song, vice president of global operations, Korea. "Fairchild
implemented a very rigorous health and safety program including regular safety
education classes, a computerized safety management system, an ergonomics team,
an emergency response team, and a health club and physiotherapy center focused
on minimizing or eliminating on-the-job related injuries and illness.”
Company
News Release A Phosphorless Solution to White LEDs on Horizon
Scott McMahanJuly 13, 2005...GaN can be put on a Zinc Oxide (ZnO) subtrate to produce a phosphorless white LED. Some experts say, such a device might offer greater light output and improved efficiency. In the device, blue light
would be emitted by the GaN. Then the blue light emission from the GaN material
would excite the florescence of doped ZnO. According to an article
in IOP’s Compound Semiconductor Magazine, the emission spectra of the fluorescence
and the blue emission could then be controlled to produce the desired white output.
ZnO reportedly offers better lattice-matching between the epilayer and substrate.
The material also allows new structures and configurations. ZnO is also conductive.
A contact device can be fabricated from the material easily. Content continues for LIGHTimes SecondPage members... Robert Walker Becomes CEO of eLite
JoAnn McDonald, Founding EditorJuly 15, 2005...Official as of today, a man of considerable stature in the compound semi
(CS) and solid state lighting (SSL) industries, Dr.
Robert C. Walker, becomes president and CEO of one of the most promising
LED innovative companies in the field, eLite
Optoelectrionics which will soon change its headquarters from City of Industry to Sunnyvale, California USA. With the addition
of Bob to the eLite management
team, current CEO/CTO and founder of eLite, Dr. Heng Liu, will now concentrate on his role as CTO and company visionary. Robert Walker and Heng Liu both hail originally
from Emcore, their tenures there beginning with the early days of the creation
of the first blue spectrum LED MOCVD epi platforms.
Robert Walker is well known to the CS and SSL industries, especially in Asia.
As a general partner of YEBY Associates, Bob chaired our recent BLUE
2005 event in Taiwan. His credentials in the field are impeccable and impressive.
Prior to forming YEBY, he was managing director - US of Vincera Ventures, a
US$150M venture capital fund based in Taiwan. Bob is credited as the catalyst
for several notable investments in the areas of HB LEDs and compound semiconductors.
While at Emcore serving as director of marketing. He oversaw the rollout of
the initial Spectra Blue and GaNzilla MOCVD platforms. As the GaN LED and LD
field rapidly expanded, Bob then served as Emcore's general manager of pacific
rim operations. In addition to helping CompoundSemi Online with the creation
and production of BLUE, he also co-published Strategies Unlimited's seminal
"Asia Producers
of HB-LEDs 2004". Bob holds a Ph.D. from Caltech and B.S. in math,
physics and computer engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
And why all the excitement about Robert Walker joining eLite? With the addition
of Bob and the caliber of crystal growers working behind the scenes, this impressive California startup represents the most solid team of
USA-based advanced LED experts the field since Lumileds and
Cree came on the scene. eLite is well-funded, it has strong ties to key Asian manufacturers and packagers, their products are already selling well. Our congratulations
to eLite for their selection of Robert Walker as CEO and we look forward to hearing what they
come up with next... when the time is right.
Bookham Showcases Products at SemiconWest Exhibition in San Francisco
CompoundSemi News StaffJuly 12, 2005...New Focus, a division of Bookham, Inc. headquartered in San Jose, California USA, is to demonstrate a number of new technologies at this week’s SemiconWest exhibition in San Francisco, California USA, July 12-14. The showcased technology includes its high speed motion control system, which reportedly offers ground-breaking levels of speed and accuracy. According to the company another of their product lines on display, their fast actuator technology offers submicron positional accuracy, complete speed and acceleration profile control, scan rates to 300mm/sec and projected lifetimes in UV applications of billions of cycles. New Focus is applying this technology to applications, including precision scanning, shuttering, and apodization.
They are also displaying New Focus active mounts with integrated and clean room compliant Picomotor linear actuators and quad cell position detectors that can be used to achieve stable control of laser beam position. The devices can also be used with high intensity UV illumination. Other new products on display at the Bookham New Focus stand include a range of super luminescent diodes, designed with short coherence length for use in applications where spurious reflections caused by multiple reflective surfaces can compromise the accuracy of reflective measurements.Company News Release BOC Edwards News
CompoundSemi News StaffJuly 12, 2005...BOC Edwards has been doing especially well lately. They were awarded new long-term service contracts at eight leading microprocessor, flash and memory chip manufacturing facilities in the United States and Europe that are expected to yield about US$15 million in incremental revenue per year. They recently-announced formation of a joint venture in Taiwan with Highlight Tech Corp. (HTC) focused on high-value process equipment component cleaning and recovery. It is expected to contribute significantly in the coming months.
The company recently sold several of the Zenith CVD integrated vacuum and abatement systems, to Elpida, Memory Inc., a Japanese DRAM manufacturer, to treat toxic process exhaust gases and precursors. BOC Edwards also received an order from a DRAM manufacturer in Singapore, for an iSIS™ 2000 slurry blend and delivery system for high volume, accurate blends, and stable slurry flow.
Eco-Snow Systems, a member of The BOC Group, introduced the WaferClean 3600 cleaning tool that uses a new dry, carbon dioxide-based process that does not have the negative effects of oxygen plasma cleaning. BOC Edwards’ thermal processing unit (TPU) has quickly evolved as the only technology proven to destroy production levels of SF6, the most environmentally harmful exhaust gas commonly used in TFT manufacture. The company’s electronic materials group reports that it has qualified its 99.999% trimethylsilane on both 200 mm and 300 mm platforms as the primary low k dielectric at semiconductor fabs in the U.S. Columbia Prof Sues Four of the Big Five LED Makers for WBG Patent Infringement
LIGHTimes StaffJuly 11, 2005...USA Professor Gertrude F. Neumark of Columbia University in New York has filed lawsuits against four of the "Big Five" in the solid state lighting industry. According to Jed Dorsheimer, equity research analyst at Adams Harkness, Dr. Neumark has filed separate patent infringement suits against Cree, Lumileds Lighting , Toyoda Gosei, and Osram Opto Semiconductors. Sidley, Austin, Brown, and Wood, the law firm representing Neumark, confirmed the lawsuits. The four separate lawsuits containing basically the same wording pertain to two of Neumark’s 1988 patents, patent # 4,904,618 entitled “Process of Doping Crystals for Wide Band Gap Semiconductors” and # 5,252,499 entitled, “Wide Band Gap Semiconductors Having Low Bipolar Resistivity and Method of Formation” which carries Dr. Neumark's other last name, Rothschild. The suit against Cree was filed in US District Court Southern District of New York on June 24, 2005. (case 05 CIV 593). 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
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