Porous-GaN material platform developer Porotech raised £3 million as it accelerates its microLED production technology development.
Porotech developed a new class of porous GaN semiconductor material, which according to the company offers performance improvements over current materials. In November 2020, the company announced what it says is the first commercial native red LED epiwafer for micro-LED applications.
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.
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 plans to establish a 140 million euros LED production fab in Champagnier, near Grenoble in France. The plan is to start LED production by 2022 - and by the company will also finalize its microdisplay production process and will start offering microLED microdisplays.
Aledia developed a microLED production process, based on a unique 3D architecture using GaN-on-silicon nanowires (branded as WireLED).
GaN-on-Si IP developer ALLOS Semiconductors announced it is collaborating with with Prof. Ohkawa and his team at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) to develop high efficiency nitride-based red LEDs on large diameter silicon substrates.
Prof. Ohkawa and team have developed an indium gallium nitride (InGaN)- based red LED stack with low forward voltage of less than 2.5 V and high efficiency by using local strain compensation and a modified MOCVD reactor design. ALLOS and the KAUST team will combine their unique technologies to handle strain and optimize crystal growth conditions for GaN-on-Si and red LEDs. To this end, the KAUST team will grow its red LED stack on top of ALLOS’ GaN-on-Si-buffer layers, which will be fine-tuned during the collaboration to optimize the performance of KAUST’s red LED stack.
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 < 40 µm and SEMI-standard thickness of 725 µm". ALLOS says scaling to 300 mm shows how robust its GaN-On-Si technology is.
UK-based GaN-On-Si MicroLED microdisplay developer Plessey Semiconductor announced that it has entered into a partnership with microdisplay system developer Compound Photonics to co-develop a Full-HD (1920x1080) 0.26-inch microLED display solution. The two companies expect to start offering samples in mid-year 2020 (not clear if these will be monochrome or full-color).
For this display system, Plessey will bond its micro-LED array wafer on Compound Photonics' backplane silicon wafer. The display module itself will be based on Compound Photonics’ NOVA digital drive architecture with MIPI input.