LED chip production will move up a gear in late 2010, following the first major supply agreement to provide polished six-inch sapphire wafers in large volumes.
High-brightness white LEDs are fabricated on wafers, using a set of manufacturing processes analogous to those used in the silicon semiconductor industry. The crucial difference is that most white LEDs consist of gallium nitride (GaN) deposited on top of a sapphire substrate. Until recently, virtually all of these LEDs have been produced on wafers of 50 to 100 mm diameter.
Now Rubicon Technology , a US provider of sapphire wafers, say one of their major customers has placed a $71 million order for 150mm material. The order represents the first large-scale supply agreement for sapphire at this size for LED production, and will enable far more LEDs to be manufactured on a single wafer.
“This contract is very exciting for Rubicon,” says CEO Raja Parvez. “While we have been supporting several LED customers in their development efforts on six inch substrates, this is the first LED chip manufacturer to move into volume production on this size material.”
With a surface area more than double that of a 4-inch wafer, it is possible to make more than 100,000 LEDs on each 6-inch wafer, and moving to the larger scale is a key element of the drive to make LEDs chips, and therefore solid-state lighting (SSL), a more competitive technology.
