Porous-GaN material platform developer Porotech announced a strategic partnership with IQE, a supplier of compound semiconductor wafer products and advanced material solutions.
The two companies aim to jointly develop, scale and commercialize Porotechâs unique microLED wafer technology that achieves all three colors (RGB) on a single 200 or 300mm GaN-based wafer.
China-based GaN epiwafer producer Enkris Semiconductor launched new microLED epiwafers. The "Full Color GaN" series offers GaN-on-Si microLED epiwafers, with wafers sizes of up to 300 mm.
Enkris' new epiwafers offers blue, red and green LED arrays, all based on the same material platform. Enkris Semiconductor uses its patented strain engineering and polarization engineering, which it says is unique, to expand its GaN-on-Si LED epiwafer product portfolio to all colors (with wavelengths of 390-650nm).
Belgium-based microLED microdisplay developer MICLEDI announced that it has raised 7 million Euro from FPIM and KBC Focus Fund. The funds will enable the company to transition from the pilot line technology development to product design and subsequently to the manufacturing phase.
MICLEDI reveals that its next steps will be to demonstrate its native-RGB microLED display on 300 mm wafers, prepare its technology IP for transfer to a foundry partner for manufacturing and launch its product development phase.
Global digital signage solution provider STRATACACHE is constructing the first US-based complete display production facility in Eugene, Oregon. The future MicroLED E4 fab is planned to commence production in 2022, and the fab will be a complete microLED production line, from epiwafer (on 300 mm silicon wafers), through transfer process and to final module assembly.
This project is extremely interesting, and we set out to discuss it with STRATACACHE's founder and CEO, Chris Riegel. At STRATACACHE, Chris leads strategic direction, technology development and engineering operations, and the MicroLED fab project seems to be personally spearheaded by him.
MicroLED display technology developer X Display Company (XDC) announced that it installed the world's first 300 mm elastomer stamp based mass MicroLED transfer equipment late in 2020. This tool was installed in the US and the company hopes to start shipping several similar tools for its customers later in 2021.
XDC spun out of X-celeprint in 2019 and retained the equipment organization from that transaction. XDC has over 15 years of experience with mass transfer micro printing technologies, and is offering a range of tools for microLED transfer, suitable for R&D work and industrial-scale production.
Global digital signage solution provider STRATACACHE is embarking on a project to construct a microLED display production line in Eugene, Oregon. The company aims to start production in this fab at around 2022-2023, with plans to adopt these microLED displays in its own solutions.
The new factory (E4) will be a complete microLED production line, from epiwafer (on 300 mm silicon wafers), through transfer process and to final module assembly. The company plans to produce a wide range of displays, from tablet-sized panels to large-area displays. Some of these displays will be flexible and transparent as the company sees a market demand for such technologies. The yearly capacity of the E4 is expected to start at a 1 million square meters per year.
France-based 3D GaN LED developer Aledia announced that it has produced its first nanowire microLED chips on 300 mm silicon wafers, at the CEA-Leti pilot line. Producing microLEDs on large wafers is more cost effective and will enable integration with smaller-node electronics.
Earlier this year Aledia announced that it plans to establish a 140 million euros LED production fab in Champagnier, near Grenoble in France. The company already raised 80 million Euros towards that goal. The new fab will use Veeco's 300 mm MOCVD systems.
German-based GaN-on-Si developer ALLOS announced that it has sold its high-power electronics and RF business to AZUR SPACE. ALLOS will now focus its business on the microLED display market.
ALLOS Semiconductors developed its GaN-on-Si epiwafer technology for both high power electronics and Micro LED applications, but the time has come to focus on one market. The company says its 200 and 300 mm epiwafer technology is crucial in meeting the uniformity, crystal quality and manufacturability requirements of the novel Micro LED display applications.
German-based GaN-on-Si developer ALLOS has applied its technology to large 300 mm epiwafers. ALLOS says that scaling up to 300 mm wafers enables higher production efficiencies and thus lower costs. ALLOS estimates that the higher area utilization alone accounts for a cost advantage of 40% compared to standard LED wafers. Standard 300 mm silicon line tools also offer higher production uniformity and yield.
ALLOS demonstrated the 300 mm scale-up using a reactor made by Veeco who announced selling the first 300 mm GaN reactor to a leading-edge semiconductor fab just some month ago and also showed 300 mm wafer data at CES. ALLOS reports a wavelength uniformity of consistently below 1 nm and "all other production requirements like bow of
Earlier in January, Belgium-based MICLEDI announced that it raised 4.5 million Euro to develop next-generation MicroLED microdisplays for AR applications.
We had a short talk with MICLEDI's CEO, Sean Lord, who helped us understand a bit more about the company's technology and goals. MICLEDI is indeed focused entirely on the AR market, and so aims to provide display engines that will be extremely bright (over 10 million nits), efficient, and with a very small footprint. In addition costs are also important for the future consumer AR market.