Current handset boom could dent 2005 sales
7 September 2004

Market research firm Gartner warns that if mobile handset sales exceed 650 million this year, it could have a damaging effect on the market in 2005.

Sales of mobile phone handsets are continuing to soar, but the excess growth seen so far this year may produce a hangover at the beginning of next year.

The warning came from US market research firm Gartner as it reported 35% year-on-year growth in the handset market. Around half of the high-brightness LEDs produced in the world end up in phone handsets, as do an even higher proportion of GaAs-based power amplifier devices.

Gartner cited "spectacular" growth in emerging markets, particularly Latin America, as phone sales hit 156.4 million in the second quarter of the year.

Consumers upgrading to camera phones spurred growth in Western Europe and North America, while sales in the Asia/Pacific region sales dropped slightly on the previous quarter as the Chinese government tried to reign in the country's rampant economic growth.

With over 300 million units sold in the first half of 2004, Gartner projects full-year sales to be around 620 million units. But it warned that there could be trouble ahead if the current momentum is maintained and unit sales reach 650 million.

"If mobile phone sales exceed 650 million units this year, it could result in excess inventory that could harm sales in the first half of 2005," said Gartner.

In another recent survey of the same market, Strategy Analytics said it believed that handset sales would reach 670 million this year (see related story).

Nokia of Finland remains the market leader, with a market share of 29.7% - up slightly on the first quarter of the year thanks to heavy discounting, but down from 35.6 million one year ago.

US-based Motorola's recovery saw its market share increase from last year, although it is still being caught by Korea's Samsung, whose market share is now 12.1%.

US start-up Sensor Electronic Technology says it is scaling up production of LEDs emitting at 280 nm.

Sensor Electronic Technology (SET) says that it has demonstrated deep-UV LEDs with both a high output power and a low drive current.

The III-V start-up company, which is based in Columbia, SC, has made the devices emit 1 mW continuous-wave (CW) output at 280 nm with a drive current of 25 mA.

In pulsed mode, the same devices yield 9 mW when driven at 200 mA.

SET had made similar devices delivering these kinds of output powers before (see related story), but has only recently been able to reduce the required drive current to a level suitable for commercial use. Previously, 280 nm-emitting LEDs had been made to emit 1.53 mW in CW mode, but only at a drive current of 450 mA.

The company has been working on developing the novel light sources, which could be used in biological agent detection, spectroscopy and water purification, under a DARPA Small Business Innovation Research contract.

"This is a major development in our efforts to commercialize semiconductor-based deep ultraviolet sources," said SET's president and CEO, Remis Gaska. "Our technology can provide ultraviolet LEDs emitting in any part of the spectrum currently covered by mercury lamps and deliver power levels acceptable for a variety of commercial applications."

"The company is scaling up production of these novel devices and already started sampling and promotional sales of deep-ultraviolet LED products," said SET in a statement.

The company manufactures the deep-UV sources using its proprietary migration-enhanced MOCVD deposition technology. According to SET, epiwafers grown using this technique have a better material quality and improved doping characteristics, particularly when it comes to depositing layers with a high aluminium content such as the AlGaN-based 280 nm LEDs.

Superluminescent LEDs break 100mW barrier
1 September 2004

Optoelectronic InP chipmaker Denselight Semiconductors says it has made "by far the highest output power" superluminescent LED available today.

Denselight Semiconductors, the InP optoelectronic chip manufacturer based in Singapore, claims to have produced the most powerful superluminescent LED (SLED) ever.

The company believes that the device, which emits 120 mW at 1550 nm, could penetrate applications such medical imaging, security and industrial sensing.

"We believe that this high-powered chip can totally change the way broadband [optical] sources are used and deployed today," said Denselight's Derek Leong.

Denselight was originally set up with a view to targeting the fiber-optic communication market, and the source emits in all of the important bands used for long-haul transmission. The company has some components operating in live networks (see related story).

But the company believes that many other applications will now be possible. "In many application areas, like test and measurement, fiber-optic sensors, optical coherence tomography and communications, increased power can certainly extend the range of such systems," said Denselight's VP of engineering, Etsuji Omura.

Optical coherence tomography is a relatively new medical imaging technique that relies on a broadband optical light source to work. The higher power of Denselight's SLED ought to produce improved images of tissue structures and allow faster scanning for real-time imaging.

Having improved the SLED output power from 25 mW to 120 mW in just a year, Denselight has further improvements planned: "It is on our roadmap to release even higher-powered SLEDs over the next several months, with an aim to reach 500 mW soon," continued Omura.

Start-up produces blue LEDs using 'dismissed' technique
The Fox Group has developed a hydride vapor-phase epitaxy technique that produces medium-brightness blue LEDs, based on AlGaN/GaN structures, at a low cost, writes Tim Whitaker.

basic principles of HVPE

Despite it being largely dismissed as a viable technique for the growth of GaN-based LEDs, The Fox Group - a start-up LED manufacturer headquartered in Ripon, CA - has developed a production method for manufacturing such devices by hydride vapor-phase epitaxy (HVPE).

Using technology originally developed by Technologies and Devices International (TDI), The Fox Group has established a manufacturing facility in Montreal, Canada, and shipped its first order of 460 nm "FoxBlue" LEDs in mid-May of this year. The mid-brightness devices have remarkable color consistency and are extremely low-cost, thanks to the use of the HVPE growth technique.

The devices are AlGaN/GaN structures that do not contain indium or quantum wells. As such, they are not high-brightness devices; typical intensities are around 1000 mcd for narrow-beam-angle LEDs or up to 3 mW for dies. "We are not competing with the big players such as Nichia, Toyoda Gosei, Cree, Osram and Lumileds, or anyone else making high-brightness InGaN LEDs," said Barney O'Meara, the company's vice-president.

Even so, the technology used by The Fox Group has three very strong advantages: the HVPE process is intrinsically low-cost; it is protected by a strong patent portfolio; and the LEDs have extremely good color consistency.

Color consistency

"The dominant wavelength is typically 460 ± 1 nm across each wafer, from wafer to wafer and from week to week," said O'Meara, who credits the incorporation of indium into InGaN/AlGaInN structures for the much larger variations in brightness and wavelength exhibited by these devices. "Even for such applications as Christmas tree or holiday lights, color consistency is a significant issue; for sign and message board manufacturers the problem is much worse."

The HVPE technology that is used to grow LEDs was developed by TDI, a wide-bandgap materials specialist company based in Silver Springs, MD. The Fox Group has an exclusive license for certain TDI patents relating to light-emitting devices, and the firm has advanced the technology from the research stage to a fully automated, reproducible manufacturing process.

The company is confident of its intellectual property position. "Besides the entirely different crystal growth process, Fox Group's LED structure is different and, we believe, non-infringing," said O'Meara. "We have one or more patents pending in this regard, and we do not use a buffer layer."

So what has prevented other companies from growing GaN LEDs by HVPE? Jacques Pankove and colleagues at RCA Labs grew n-type GaN by HVPE more than 30 years ago, but used a metal junction for the p-side of their device. Successfully growing p-type material was one of the key factors in developing a viable growth technology, while the other was the ability to use aluminum in a quartz-tube reactor. The Fox Group is currently using industry-standard 2 inch sapphire wafers, although other substrates can also be used.

Compared with MOCVD, which is used by all other manufacturers of blue GaN-based LEDs, HVPE is estimated to reduce the consumption of ammonia by at least an order of magnitude. Also, HVPE uses pure metals as starting materials rather than metal-organic precursors, which are around 10 times as expensive per gram of metal. The fast growth rate of HVPE (up to 1 μm/minute) and the relative simplicity of the HVPE-grown device structure also help to further reduce the overall cost of the process.

Veeco Catches a Piece of China GaN Build-Up
September 7, 2004...Veeco Instruments Inc. (Nasdaq: VECO) announced the grab of a piece of China's GaN build-up with the sale of a D180 GaN MOCVD tool to Beijing Changdian Zhiyuan Optoelectronics Co., Ltd. A subsidiary of Changjiang Electronics Technology. According to a company spokesman, Professor Guang Di Shen of Beijing Changdian Zhiyuan Optoelectronics, "We believe the D180 GaN is the ideal platform to help us pursue new innovations for our packaged GaN devices. The precise control provided by this equipment will enable us to fine-tune our processes and speed the transition from device development to end-product." It was added that the equipment will help them to develop novel applications for gallium nitride (GaN) materials, although "how novel" was not specified. Veeco's D180 GaN platform is designed for both material development programs and small-scale production of advanced GaN-based devices, including UV LEDs and blue spectrum lasers.

Nokia Chooses Kopin Microdisplay for Miniature Picture Viewer Phone Accessory
September 7, 2004...Nokia has selected long-time compound semi industry contributor Kopin's (NASDAQ: KOPN) CyberDisplay(TM) 180K as the color microdisplay for Nokia's Kaleidoscope I, a neat little picture-viewing and storage accessory to accompany digital still cameras and next-generation mobile phone systems. The Nokia Kaleidoscope I upped the image-quality ante for phone-based digital imaging by making use of Kopin's CyberDisplay 180K, a color-filter microdisplay that contains 800 x 225 (180,000) pixel dots on a quarter-inch (6 mm) diagonal active matrix liquid crystal display (AMLCD) surface. The Kaleidoscope I is about the size of a salt shakerand uses infrared technology to receive images from a compatible imaging phone or digital camera, which are viewed by looking through a viewfinder. One obvious use is to enable users to create a mobile digital photo album. The Nokia Kaleidoscope I can store up to 24 high-resolution digital images internally and up to 750 images using an external 64MB memory card in the device's memory card slot.

Color Kinetics Takes the "Fairy Lights" Underwater
September 7, 2004...In a coincident follow-on to the awarding of their "smart fairy lights patent" (our words) reported on August 26, "miniaturized, integrated, intelligent solid-state string light, whereby individual LED nodes in a string configuration have the capability to be independently controlled," Color Kinetics has scored another patent, this time relating to intelligent pool and spa lighting systems. Issued on August 24, 2004, the patent covers Color Kinetics' core methods of controlling LED-based illumination in pool and spa environments. One aspect relates to illumination in a pool or spa generated by a microprocessor-controlled, LED-based light. Another aspect relates to the adaptation of a light source to generate different colors without requiring the use of colored filters, which reduces the complexity and increases the reliability of the lighting system. In the words of George Mueller, Chairman and CEO, "The issuance of this patent represents another important step in our strategy to propagate the use of Color Kinetics' technology across vertical markets beyond the traditional lighting space." SecondPage members can read more about the patent portfolio with links to the patents text...

Formosa Epitaxy to Ship Power LEDs as Backlights
August 31, 2004...Formosa Epitaxy has reported, via DigiTimes, that they plan to begin shipping small volumes of power LEDs as backlights in the full gambit of applications, including portable DVD players, car TVs and GPS panels, according to Charles Wei, Assistant VP of Formosa Epitaxy. The type LEDs poised to go out the door are flip chip packaged devices with 1-3 watts of radiant power and V-GaN LEDs with 3-5 watts of radiant power that are reported to be 60% brighter than its digital penetration ITO (DPI) LEDs. According to Mr. Wei, Formosa Epitaxy shipped samples to its South Korea customers earlier this year and will start applying the chips in smaller-sized products, such as 6- and 8-inch portable DVD players and car-use LCD panels.

August Estimates Already In From Taiwan LED Makers
August 31, 2004...Leading LED makers in Taiwan, including Epistar, Harvatek, Everlight, Formosa Epitaxy, Arima and Bright LED have been reported by DigiTimes to be experiencing mixed estimates, depending on their market focus. Those waiting for handset makers from China, which include Epistar, Harvatek and Everlight, are seeing monthly revenues down, but those in other markets are evidently fairing much better. DigiTimes reports that Formosa Epitaxy and Arima "will perform better than their competitors" due to Formosa Epitaxy's steady orders coming from its South Korea-based clients, which will allow them to retain sales at July levels. Arima's are expected to hit record revenue levels for August. Package and test house, Bright LED Electronics, is projected to go up in revenues by almost 6% over July earnings. Taiwan LED-chip makers Epistar and Formosa Epitaxy report that monthly handset-use LED chip shipments dropped slightly and remained flat throughout August but are expected to pick up next month. A detailed report on Epistar and Formosa Epitaxy regarding handset-use LED shipments can be found here. It notes that handset use LEDs have been falling all summer, but that despite supply now exceeding demand, that Epistar continues to ramp, though lowering their earlier capacity goal. Formosa Epitaxy's anticipated monthly shipments of blue spectrum LEDs is expected to remain at their previously estimated 8.3-10 million units and that Formosa Epitaxy turned on three new MOCVD platforms in late June.

Toyota & Denso Researchers Score Cover Article in Nature on Dislocation-Free SiC Crystal Growth
August 31, 2004...It's always news when a prestigious magazine like "Nature" publishes a paper from one of the compound semi community's R&D teams and it is always our pleasure to point readers to precisely where they can find the online and print issue involved. In this case, the researchers scored the cover! The team is at Toyota Central R&D Labs and Denso Corporation Research laboratories, both located in Aichi, Japan. The topic of their published research is good old SiC, specifically their growth of what appears to be significantly improved... "virtually dislocation-free" hexagonal SiC crystals. The title of their article is: Ultrahigh-quality silicon carbide single crystals and it appears in Nature issue 430, 1009 - 1012 dated 26 August 2004 (doi:10.1038/nature02810). This is the link to the online abstract (free). Link to full online text (subscription required). And here's the link to the magazine's online news coverage written by the Nature staff hyping the article and providing their spin on the potential of SiC... a topic our community has been pontificating on for decades. Listed authors of the Nature article are: Daisuke Nakamura, Itaru Gunjishima, Satoshi Yamaguchi, Tadashi Ito, Atsuto Okamoto, Hiroyuki Kondo, Shoichi Onda, and Kazumasa Takatori. Kondo and Onda are from Denso and the other authors are from Toyota. The abstract reads as follows which provides the entire SiC community with the basic defect density metrics to compare with other such SiC research. Note that any correspondence and requests for materials is to be addressed to K.T. (takatori@mosk.tytlabs.co.jp).

Abstract: Silicon carbide (SiC) has a range of useful physical, mechanical and electronic properties that make it a promising material for next-generation electronic devices. Careful consideration of the thermal conditions in which SiC {0001} is grown has resulted in improvements in crystal diameter and quality: the quantity of macroscopic defects such as hollow core dislocations (micropipes), inclusions, small-angle boundaries and long-range lattice warp has been reduced. But some macroscopic defects (about 1–10 cm-2) and a large density of elementary dislocations (104 cm-2), such as edge, basal plane and screw dislocations, remain within the crystal, and have so far prevented the realization of high-efficiency, reliable electronic devices in SiC (refs 12–16). Here we report a method, inspired by the dislocation structure of SiC grown perpendicular to the c-axis (a-face growth), to reduce the number of dislocations in SiC single crystals by two to three orders of magnitude, rendering them virtually dislocation-free. These substrates will promote the development of high-power SiC devices and reduce energy losses of the resulting electrical systems.

Densen Cao
CAO Group, Inc.
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