| Sponsored
Links |
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial: Is Emcore Moving Too Fast on CPV Spin Out Plans?
... The USA economy is in flux, Washington DC is mired in election year politics on the way to explosive presidential and congressional election year, the renewable energy bandwagon is only starting its uphill roll (and hasn't as yet been fully decorated nor properly fueled), people are only just now...
Jump down to the full story
| |
Features:
|
|
Spire Corporation Receives Patent for Method of Large Scale Quantum Well Fabrication
CompoundSemi News StaffFebruary 13, 2008...Spire Corporation, a company that offers turnkey solar manufacturing systems, has reportedly been awarded a patent for devising a method to produce highly uniform nanoparticles (quantum dots) on a large scale. The company explains that quantum dots “are nanometer-sized (about one 25-millionth of an inch) semiconductor structures which, when exposed to light at predetermined wavelengths, can generate free electrons and create an electrical current. The confinement of electrons in these minute three-dimensional structures gives scientists the ability to use quantum dots to precisely control the optical properties of various devices, such as a solar cell or a biomarker for detecting cancer.” The company says the patent, United States Patent Number 7,306,963 entitled, "Precision Synthesis of Quantum Dot Nanostructures for Fluorescent and Optoelectronic Devices," may eventually be useful in producing high efficiency, low-cost solar cells and other optoelectronic devices such as lasers, light emitting diodes (LEDs), and photodetectors. Company News Release
 |
February 13, 2008...Gemfire, an integrated photonics company with headquarters in Fremont, California USA, reported that it has completed the merger with Covega Corporation, a provider of indium phosphide (InP) and lithium niobate components for telecommunications, medical, and test and measurement applications. Covega, located in Jessup, Maryland, also produces what it calls Superluminescent LEDs (SLEDs), Fabry-Perot lasers, tunable laser gain chips, semiconductor optical amplifiers, and lithium niobate modulators.
Covega will become a wholly owned subsidiary and the active component division of Gemfire’s growing Planar Light Circuit (PLC) product family.
Richard Tompane, president and CEO of Gemfire, highlighted the benefit of integrating active and passive wafer-scale architectures. “Through integration of more optical functions into PLCs, it is possible to provide better performance and cost effective solutions to meet the needs of large system integrators under pressure to deliver solutions capable of supporting the rapid growth in demand for bandwidth. This world-class team has the best technology and shares our vision of photonic integration.” Gemfire News Release TriQuint Debuts Integrated, Global Front End Solution for 3G Handsets
CompoundSemi News StaffFebruary 13, 2008...TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc, a leading RF front-end product manufacturer and foundry services provider, showcased a new multi-mode system solution for handsets at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain (11th – 14th Feb. 2008). The company produced four new highly-integrated modules to support all global standards from 2G GSM/GPRS to the latest multimedia-centric 3G standards, including HSUPA. According to TriQuint the new modules are aligned with Infineon’s SMARTi™ UE transceivers. TriQuint says its newest switch design acts as glue between these air interfaces, enabling this high-performing one-antenna solution.
TriQuint CEO, Ralph Quinsey commented, “Manufacturers are looking for solutions that work across multiple air interfaces and form factors whether building traditional, flip or slider phones. Our highly integrated modules and high linearity pHEMT switch provide a single antenna solution for both GSM and WCDMA radios in a multi-standard handset. The global system solution we are announcing today is enabled by our broad in-house technology portfolio.” Company News Release
 |
Toho Technology Becomes Japan Distributor for Nanometrics CS Metrology Products
CompoundSemi News StaffFebruary 13, 2008...Nanometrics Inc. of Milpitas, California USA has named Toho Technology of Tokyo, Japan the distributor of Nanometrics’ compound semiconductor characterization tools. As part of the agreement, Toho Technology will open a dedicated demo facility in the Tokyo area to facilitate product sales and marketing in the Japan region. The agreement follows the successful sale of Nanometrics' Flat Panel Display (FPD) Business Unit to Toho Technology (December 20, 2005). Nanometrics said it will continue to sell its 200mm/300mm fab tools through its Nanometrics Japan subsidiary.
"This partnership with Toho to support our Materials Characterization products will greatly improve our corporate presence in the region and enable Nanometrics to focus on its growing fab business," commented Tom Ryan, director of Nanometrics' Materials Characterization Business Unit. Nanometrics News Release Veeco Expects Substantial Growth in LED and Solar Process Equipment
CompoundSemi News StaffFebruary 12, 2008...Veeco projects that sales of its Turbo Disc MOCVD systems will be bolstered by increasing demand for LEDs.
John Peeler, Veeco’s president and CEO stated, “We expect continued strong order patterns in the LED market given the broadening adoption of LED. The overall LED market is forecasted to growth from $4.2 billion in 2006 to $9.4 billion in 2011, which as an 18% compounded annual growth rate.”
Peeler added, “Some applications are forecasted to grow at much higher rates, for example, LED’s for architectural and retail lighting are forecasted to grow nearly 40% over the next several years. Our customers are seeing increased penetration in exterior as well as interior automotive lighting and a recent strategy analytics survey estimated that this market alone could be worth a billion dollars by 2014.” In addition, Peeler noted, “LED’s are also experiencing increased adoption in laptop backlighting, with the industry players expecting growth at the expense of traditional CCFL solutions.”
Overall the company expects sales revenues from both LED and Solar Process related equipment to be up 20 to 25 percent for the year. (Ref: Transcript of Quarterly Financial Results). Emcore to Spin-off CPV Unit
CompoundSemi News StaffFebruary 10, 2008...Backlog orders for concentrator photovoltaic systems have stacked up at Emcore in the previous quarter ending December 31, 2007. Emcore cited a delay from November to January as the reason that the revenues from the CPV segment declined 18% on $15.8 Million last quarter. The delay was in the delivery and installation of die-attach equipment for the new concentrator photovoltaics (CPV) solar cell and receiver manufacturing line. Ultimately the delay caused a shortfall of about $3 Million on scheduled CPV receiver shipments. Emcore says backlog order shipments should start soon because new manufacturing equipment is expected to go online quickly. Richards said that the first fiscal quarter of 2008 opened up CPV opportunities in Canada, South Korea, and Spain. Then, at the end of January, SunPeak solar ordered 200MW to 700MW of CPV for the American Southwest.
“Progress in each of our business segments continues to point towards the path of separating Emcore into two separate companies,” concluded Richards. “Given the fact that the size of renewable energy projects contemplated will require dramatic and unprecedented expansion, it is likely that the board of directors at this March’s meeting will determine that, in order to finance this rapid growth, Emcore will split into two separate businesses: a standalone fiber-optics company and a renewable energy company that would be spun off to Emcore shareholders after an initial public offering (IPO) to raise the capital in support of the significant growth in the terrestrial power business,” Richards said. Emcore Quarterly Financial Results for Q1 Fiscal 2008 Ending December 2007
Enablence Technologies Acquires ANDevices
CompoundSemi News StaffFebruary 11, 2008...Enablence Technologies Inc. of Ontario, Canada, a developer of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) transceivers for optical modems, has completed the acquisition of U.S.A. - based ANDevices, Inc., (“ANDevices”), a supplier of photonic devices for the access, metro, and long-haul communication markets. As part of the acquisition agreement, all of the issued and outstanding shares of ANDevices were acquired for an aggregate price of US$13.5 million and 9,085,113 common shares of Enablence.
According to Enablence, Dr. Jacob Sun has been re-appointed president of ANDevices and will continue to run Enablence’s new U.S. subsidiary. Additionally, Dr. Sun has been appointed to the position of Chief Operating Officer of Enablence, replacing the former Vice President of Operations whose position was eliminated on January 30, 2008.
‘“Enablence now has its own internal large volume optical wafer fabrication facility for the production of PLCs for its FTTH transceivers as well as a suite of complementary optical products, ” explained Mr. Chhatbar, Chief Executive Officer of Enablence. “The acquisition gives us a strong U.S. presence and the ability to expand our product offerings into emerging markets by combining our dispersion bridge technology with the capabilities of the ANDevices team.” Enablence Technologies News Release RFMD Makes 3G Transmit System Available
CompoundSemi News StaffFebruary 11, 2008...RF Micro Devices, Inc., a maker of high-performance radio systems and solutions, announced general market availability of the RF6280 3G transmit system. The RF6280 is a flexible 3G multi-mode solution designed to simplify implementation of multi-band and multi-mode 3G handsets and mobile device platforms.
RFMD says that the new system supports all major WCDMA frequency bands and is comprised of a front end power management IC optimized for use with either one or both of two available power amplifier (PA) options: the RF6281 and/or the RF6285.
The RF6280 has dynamically controlled PA operating conditions which utilize analog bias control and patent-pending DC to DC conversion technologies. It enables mode-optimized PA efficiency and linearity performance across all power levels, data rates (voice-only to HSPA) and non-ideal load conditions (also known as "antenna mismatch").
The company notes that the system leverages a balanced (quadrature) PA architecture, offering improved total radiated power (TRP) and specific absorption rate (SAR) performance. It thereby eliminates the need for costly RF isolators and simplifies multi- band platform implementation. Company News Release Avago Introduces New Family of PAs Based on CoolPam Technology
CompoundSemi News StaffFebruary 11, 2008...Avago Technologies introduced a new family of power amplifiers based on the fifth generation of the company’s CoolPAM technology. The ACPM-7353 supports three power modes: high, mid and active-bypass mode, in addition to industry-low quiescent current levels. Avago says that these unique features can conserve power and lower the average current of CDMA transmitter usage. The ACPM-7353 also supports dual-band frequencies (cellular and USPCS). The company says it simplifies power amplifier design with a single RF input port for each band.
“Continuous mobile handset usage time is heavily dependant on the power consumption of the power amplifier. Handsets tend to transmit at lower power levels as cellular network coverage matures, so efficiency at this power level is critical to optimizing performance. Power amplifiers in mobile handsets do not need to operate continuously at high output power levels,” said Philip Gadd, senior marketing director of Avago Technologies’ Wireless Semiconductor Division. 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
|
|
|
|
|
|
Commentary & Perspective...
Is Emcore Moving Too Fast on CPV Spin Out Plans?
Jo Ann McDonald, founding editorFebruary 12, 2008...The USA economy is in flux, Washington DC is mired in election year politics on the way to explosive presidential and congressional election year, the renewable
energy bandwagon is only starting its uphill roll (and hasn't as yet been
fully decorated nor properly fueled), people are only just now starting
to get wind of what the field of concentrator photovoltaics (CPV) is all about,
yet one of the mainstay compound semi chip and system companies, Emcore Corporation
of Albuquerque, New Mexico, is talking seriously about spinning out its CPV division
into a stand-alone publicly held company via an independent public offering
(IPO).
Don't get me wrong. I love Emcore. Always have, always will. There's simply
something about their CEOs, past (Norm Schumaker) and present (Reuben Richards)
that evoke basic loyalty and confidence, especially if the loyalist is uniquely
close to the company. Ask anyone from Aixtron and they'll likely tell you that
I've spent way too many words of praise on Emcore over the years. Indeed, I
spent a three year "sabbatical" from journalism to consult to Emcore
as its director of corporate communications during the era (1998-2000) when
it gradually moved from its pioneer status in Somerset, New Jersey as one of
our industry's major suppliers of MOCVD equipment (competing head-to-head with
Aixtron) to also become a leading materials and device foundry. That was also
the timeframe when Emcore built the Albuquerque facility and solar division
and started making its way up the supply chain into the satellite solar and
fiberoptics device provider it is today.
A journalist who gets to go inside a key company for a lengthy consulting gig
at the level at which I dwelled inside Emcore can attest to the fact that you
get to know more about that company, and the overall industry, better you ever
could as a journalist covering the industry. Most importantly, when you've been
party to ghostwriting many of their words, when you step outside again, you
know how to read between the lines. When I put my model CS stock portfolio together
three years ago, after having established CompoundSemi Online, Emcore (Nasdaq:
EMKR) was the first one in the portfolio, which now includes a mere 100 shares
each of: Aixtron (AIXG), Anadigics (ANAD), AXT (AXTI), Cree (CREE), JDS Uniphase
(JDSU), Kopin (KOPN), RF Micro Devices (RFMD), Spire (SPIR) and TriQuint Semiconductor
(TQNT). The ying-yang they all routinely and collectively go through makes for
interesting column fodder, which is the only reason I set it up. As it turns
out, right now Spire and Emcore are the only two yielding +$1,000 gains since
the original investments. Both include CPV in their product offerings. I bought
the original Emcore shares in April of '05 at a mere $3.08/share, and it's trading
today at $14.50/share. I bought Spire shares at $4.45 in May of '05, and it's
trading today at $17.93. Go CPV technology!
But that doesn't mean it's a smart time for Emcore to spin off its CPV division
via a stand-alone IPO. I think the USA economy is shaky enough, with a coincident instability in the political arenas added into the fact that CPV is still in its technological infancy, that going for an IPO might not
be the best thing for Emcore shareholders, who will vote on the matter at their
upcoming annual meeting in March. Listening to Emcore's recent earnings conference
call, it all sounds rosy and promising. And it is. Reading between all the tiny print
that the SEC mandates they send out to shareholders, however, isn't easy, but my instinct tells me there's more to the story.
And as any semiconductor industry veteran will tell you, progress in a relatively new
sector is always slower than anticipated. Ask anyone in the world of silicon
and they'll readily remind you that niche markets are especially fickle. What's more, the renewalable energy sector is especially subject to fickleness in the face of the entrenched oil company giants who don't welcome in challengers.
Listening to the Emcore recent conference call, (which is accessible
online until Feb. 14th) there was considerable emphasis on the pending CPV
deal via a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Emcore and SunPeak Solar
LLC of Palm Desert, California. The caveats are that SunPeak Solar is depending
heavily on two things: acquiring and maintaining huge hunks of cheap land in
Southern California near the Arizona border and in the Sultan Sea, and the whims
of the US Congress. Doing a bit of online sleuthing, one notes that the only
online information available on SunPeak Solar appears to be in connection to
the Emcore MOU (Ref: Jan 31, 2008 company
news release). Otherwise, no news or information is available about SunPeak
Solar. The company has only a bare-bones website
and when googling its principals by name, despite the claim that they have "over
90 years combined experience in the development and operation of energy projects
in North America and Europe" you get virtually zip on those principals.
Plus, when googling the company that evidently preceded SunPeak Solar, UPC International,
(and note that you have to add "renewal energy" or you get nothing that relates),
it was evidently involved in the acquisition of very large land tracks for
wind farms with a bit of controversy.
According to Emcore, SunPeak Solar is depending heavily on the US Congress
to grant companies like SunPeak renewable energy investment tax credits (ITCs)
via the so-called "economic recovery package" currently before Congress.
Anyone who objectively tracks the US Congress these days knows that not much
legislation actually gets passed, no matter how many "campaign promises"
are spouted. Plus, it doesn't take much to realize
that most of the pending economic incentive talk is largely election year eyewash.
Then there's the pesky holdover fact that Emcore hasn't yet regained its former
profitability status from back when it was primarily a CS materials and equipment company.
When it went public in the mid-1990s after Reuben Richards and chairman of the
board Tom Russell took over the helm from Norm Schumaker, the IPO share price
was $10. It reached a whopping $150 at its peak, before the telecom collapse,
and now, almost 10 years later, it's just re-approaching $15/share. Plus, Emcore
remains in the final throws of settling its stock option difficulties and fully
integrating the new management team that results from the headquarters move
to Albuquerque and resignation of various members of senior management.
Emcore's top leaders, President
and COO Hong Hou and CEO Reuben Richards, however, have been with Emcore for
quite a long time now and are obviously extremely knowledgeable about CPV technology
and the nascent CPV marketplace. Solar division VPs David Danzillo and Ed
Fuller who are likely to be tagged to run the spin off, are doing excellent work
and are extremely well-credentialed. So, I have high hopes for the idea in the
longrun. If anyone can make it work, they likely can. But personally, I think
spinning out the solar division with an IPO when the dust hasn't completely
settled from so much change is premature. Shareholders may elect to wait until
things settle down a bit more and the path looks a little more defined. We'll
see what happens in March.
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
|
|
