Three projects involving compound semiconductor companies Cree, SemiSouth and Crystal IS win a total of over $7 million in funding from the US Commerce Department.

High-risk projects involving SiC power modules for automobiles, high-brightness LEDs for solid-state lighting and AlN substrates have won $7 million backing from the US Commerce Department.

The Department's Advanced Technology Program (ATP), which is managed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, CO, funded 32 new projects in the latest round of awards.

The three-year projects all involve high-risk efforts that a single company would be unlikely to take on without backing from the state. However, the potential benefits of any successful projects on the US economy could be huge.

Three of the newly-funded projects involve compound semiconductor technologies. The biggest of these projects is focused on white LED lamps for solid-state lighting. It involves chipmaker Cree and nanomaterials specialist Nanocrystal Lighting.

With ATP backing of $3.4 million, the total fund for this project amounts to almost $7 million. The aim is to demonstrate an LED-based lamp with an integrated chip approach that "would more than quadruple the brightness and double the efficiency of existing LED systems".

If successful, such a development could reduce the cost per lumen of LED lamps to a point where their introduction for general solid-state lighting could be accelerated by three years.

Cree and Nanocrystal plan to combine high-efficiency blue LEDs with phosphor nanomaterials that convert the emission into broadband white light.

Meanwhile, an intriguing project that could drastically reduce reliance on gasoline in automobiles has been sponsored by Mississippi State University spin-out and SiC chip specialist SemiSouth Laboratories.

With ATP funding of $1.8 million, SemiSouth plans to develop an integrated SiC "smart power chip" that promises to halve the volume and weight of hybrid electric vehicles power modules.

SemiSouth has lined up car maker Nissan, as well as General Electric and Lockheed Martin, as potential partners in the project. Nevertheless, a prototype module is expected to take 5-7 years to produce.

The third project, which has received $2 million from the ATP, involves the development of AlN native substrates by Crystal IS of Watervliet, NY. Armed with the extra cash, the company plans to accelerate the development of 2-inch diameter boules for both electronic and optoelectronic applications.

Second LED distributor yields to Osram
5 October 2004

American Microsemiconductor will not distribute LEDs supplied by the Malaysian company Dominant Semiconductors, says Osram Opto.

According to LED manufacturer Osram Opto Semicopnductors, a second distributor has decided not to import or market products that are alleged to infringe the German company's intellectual property.

Osram says that the declaration from American Microsemiconductor, which is based in Madison, US, relates in particular to products supplied by the Malaysian company Dominant Semiconductors.

In June this year, Osram filed a lawsuit with the International Trade Commission over Dominant's alleged infringement of patent rights concerning two aspects of LED manufacturing.

Dominant replied with a counterclaim of its own two months later.

The first alleged infringement concerns the conversion of blue light from an InGaN LED into white light through the use of a phosphor. These one-chip white LEDs are widely used to backlight displays in cell phone handsets and automotive dashboards.

The second area of contention concerns the design of electrical connections for high-power LEDs used mainly in automotive applications.

American Microsemiconductor is the second US distributor, after American Opto Plus, to bow to Osram's pressure on intellectual property.

Osram has licensed its technology to a number of major LED manufacturers, including Nichia and Rohm in Japan, Vishay in the US, and Everlight and Lite-On in Taiwan.

Osram Opto's managing director Rüdiger Müller added that another Taiwan-based company has also given recent reassurance that it would only use Osram's licensed products and would not risk infringement by manufacturing.

"The agreements between Osram and the two US distributors, and in particular between Osram and the Taiwanese companies, show that infringement of property rights is no longer seen throughout the world as a trivial offence," said Müller.

Densen Cao
CAO Group, Inc.
8683 South 700 West
Sandy, UT 84070
801-256-9282 (tel) ext 5598
801-495-5598 (direct)
801-256-9287 (fax)
www.caogroup.com (web)