Editorial:
SolFocus Jumps On the Compound Semi Solar Bandwagon
... Compound semi-based solar cells are finally making headway in the mainstream tech press, and it isn't just Emcore and Spectrolab making the solar headlines anymore. There are various new names appearing on the solar scene, with one particular newcomer, calling itself SolFocus, in the spotlight. This particular startup is... Read the editorial...
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IQE Completes Acquisition of Emcore's Epi Business CompoundSemi News Staff
August 21, 2006...IQE reports completing the acquisition of Emcore’s US epi foundry business, called
the Electronic Materials Division (EMD). The acquisition was completed after shareholders
approved the settlement of funds with Emcore. The acquisition cost a total of
$16 million with 13 million of it in cash and $3 million in financing at 7.5 percent annual
interest rate to be paid in equal payments in each of next four fiscal quarters.
Emcore says it expects $9 to $11 million profit from the sale.
The IQE says the acquisition positions it as the leading global outsource supplier of wireless
components including: pseudomprphic high electron mobility transistors (PHEMTs),
heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs), integrated bipolar field effect transistors
(BiFETs) and gallium nitride (GaN) technologies. IQE’s Directors believe
that the new customer base and the new product offerings will help increase
revenues. IQE now boasts the largest production capacity epi foundry in the
industry.
Dr Drew Nelson, President & CEO of IQE plc commented, “We are
very happy to have completed this acquisition, which represents a key step forward
in IQE’s development as the leading outsource wafer supplier worldwide
to the global semiconductor industry. The joining of the two companies allows
IQE to offer a truly one stop wafer outsource service to its customers, with
a complete range of current and next generation products. This transaction assures
EMD’s current customers that as part of a larger wafer outsource group
all the necessary resources are in place to fully support the joint customer
base as their wafer demands continue to grow.”IQE
News Release IQE’s products reportedly include components used in wireless infrastructure, optical communications, optical storage (CD, DVD), laser optical mouse, laser printers & photocopiers, thermal imagers, leading edge medical products, barcode, high efficiency LEDs and a variety of advanced silicon based systems.
LLF Adds Lighting Industry Veterans to Management Scott McMahan
August 21, 2006...LED Lighting Fixtures (LLF), the Morrisville, North Carolina USA-based solid
state lighting company started by Neal Hunter, announced two additions to its
management team from the lighting industry. Paul Pickard was appointed vice
president of operations, and Gary Trott joined as vice president of product
development. Acccording to LLF, Mr. Pickard held various management positions
with Acuity Brands, Inc. and most recently served as the director of new product
engineering for Lithonia Lighting. At Lithonia he developed and implemented
the company’s central design and engineering group. His fourteen years
of experience include managing groups of engineers, product development, product
manufacturing, and outsourcing US-based product lines to foreign sources. Gary
Trott reportedly brings 16 years of lighting industry experience, 14 of which
were at Acuity Brands. He held management positions in product development and
marketing.
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Affordable Neonatal Jaundice Treatment With LEDs LIGHTimes Staff
August 21, 2006...An inventor, originally from Bangalore, India, with a masters degree from Duke
University in engineering management, has developed a low cost method of treating newborn jaundice,
an article in
India Times reported. Newborn Jaundice or hyperbilirubinemia, at higher levels
can lead to brain damage, cerebal palsy, auditory nerve damage, gaze
abnormalities, and dental problems. Vijay Anand created the Gini 300 which reportedly
costs around $500, or one-eighth the price of the current devices. He chose
to use an array of LEDs instead of the frequently used fluorescent tubes as
part of the new design. The device is meant to give poor hospitals and third world countries
the benefit of a proven, life-saving light therapy at a much more affordable
cost.
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August 21, 2006...Avago Technologies of San Jose, California USA, has introduced a thin, decorative, and flexible LED light for consumer and industrial applications. The line of light strip modules, the ASMT-Lx50 and Lx60, can be bent into any shape without affecting performance.
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Vgoal to Distribute Acol Technology Products LIGHTimes Staff
August 16, 2006...Vgoal a subsidiary of Kuen Chang Uppertech, headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan,
will now distribute high bightness LEDs and LED light engines from Acol Technologies
of Geneva, Switzerland, according to Acol. Under the distribution agreement,
Acol stated that Vgoal will distribute the LEDs and LED light engines to China,
Taiwan, and Japan. Acol Technology’s LEDs and LED light engines are used
in railroad signals, traffic signals, automotive lights, commercial signage,
architectural effect lighting, and general illumination. Acol says that their
LED light engines and discreet LED products offer light efficiency, power, integration
and cost benefits for light system manufacturers. Acol indicated that Asian
customers can now work directly with Vgoal for sales and technical support.
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Color Kinetics LED Color-Changing Technology to Go in Toys
August 16, 2006...LED color control specialist, Color Kinetics (CK) of Boston, Massachusetts USA,
has reported signing a global licensing agreement with Spin Master, a maker
of toys and children’s products. Under the agreement, Spin Master will
have access to Color Kinetics’ patent portfolio to develop and market
a line of color-changing children’s toys and entertainment products. Spin
Master also licenses to prominent third party brands such as Disney, Marvel,
and Nickelodeon.
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Avago Adds Development Kits for RGB Color Sensor Installation LIGHTimes Staff
August 16, 2006...Avago Technologies, reportedly the largest privately held semiconductor company,
has introduced three “plug and play” development kits that they
contend save time in evaluating red, blue, and green color sensor products.
According to Avago, all that is needed is the HDJD-JDXX RGB color sensor development
kit, and personal computer. The company says that the kits come with all the
necessary tools and software to develop color sensing and measurement applications.
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NuVision to Bring LED-based DLP TV to Market LIGHTimes Staff
August 14, 2006...NuVision of Denver, Colorado USA, announced that it will ship its new 1080p
DLP television in September of 2006. This will be about a month after Samsung
released the first LED-based DLP TV to the market at the beginning of August. NuVision
says that their Deep Black LED DLP televisions will first come in the 52”
model, but the company plans larger screen models in the near future. NuVision’s
DLP with LED-based illumination, like Samsung’s
LED-based DLP TV, is based on the Phlatlight from U.S.A. company, Luminus
Devices Inc. NuVision says the version of the Phlatlight technology in their
DLP TV is designed with specialized electronics systems optimized to their proprietary control and signal processing systems.
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Si-Light Receives $280,000 in Seed Funding
August 14, 2006...Si-Light Technologies Ltd., a company based in London, UK, which hopes to develop
silicon-based LEDs for optoelectronic applications, has received $280,000 in
seed funding from the Cascade Fund Co. Si-Light is reportedly a spin-off from
the University of Surrey. The co-founders, Russell Gwillam and Guosheng Shao
are joint inventors of the company's dislocation engineering technology. Kevin
Arthur, chief executive officer of Si-Light, said the latest round of funding
would be used to develop a good business plan to present to venture capital
companies later this year. John Read, the company chairman, said the money would
also help Si-Light to expand its demonstration capability.
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Commentary & Perspective...
SolFocus Jumps On the Compound Semi Solar Bandwagon
August 16, 2006...Compound semi-based solar cells are finally making headway in the mainstream
tech press, and it isn't just Emcore and Spectrolab making the solar headlines
anymore. There are various new names appearing on the solar scene, with one
particular newcomer, calling itself SolFocus, in the spotlight.
This particular startup is teamed with a very well established name in advanced
semiconductor R&D, Xerox subsidiary, PARC. The acronym PARC stands for where
it resides: Palo Alto Research Center in California's Silicon Valley
in the USA.
For many years, the only names in the compound semi-based high efficiency,
multijunction solar cell game (versus silicon-based systems) were Emcore, Tecstar,
and Boeing's Spectrolab. In March of 2002, Emcore bought the remains of Tecstar
for $20 million, which meant only two providers remained, Spectrolab and Emcore.
That $20 million mainly went to buying up Tecstar's satellite contracts when
Tecstar's competing technology to Emcore's solar proved not to be up to what
the rigors of space demanded. Both Spectrolab's and Emcore's GaAs on Ge multijunction
cells have long been sought after for space applications. The space market has had
its ups and downs over the years, but multijunction solar cells have proven their value in terms of
their impressively higher efficiency (than silicon) many times over. Only recently has the compound
semi market for solar cells begun to open up for terrestrial applications.
Now, various "new" names have begun to grace our pages as companies
jump on board the compound semi solar bandwagon. For a litany of our coverage,
just take
a scan at what comes up on "article search" when you tick "high
efficiency solar cells". Granted, we've included Spire in that litany,
even though they're primarily involved in making the equipment that makes silicon based cells. The inclusion of Spire is
due to that company's pioneering of compound semi materials technology and MOCVD. Personally I'd like to see someone like Spire provide CS cells or the equipment to make them because of their CS knowledge and experience in affordable terrestrial applications. I'm pretty sure
all the others qualify as CS-based manufacturers. For sure this new company to our roster, SolFocus, does
but it took a little detective work to be sure. For several reasons I hope to call our SSL industry readers' attention to this. First, I really want to
encourage alternative energy sources to get up and running as fast as possible,
thus weaning the world off its over-dependency on oil as rapidly as possible. I also want to encourage
creative companies to combine LED technology with solar as rapidly as possible. Most importantly, adding solar power to LEDs creates clean, efficient, and ultimately more cost
effective energy alternatives. It's a simple formula that will work wonders
to help preserve and maintain our fragile earth.
The reason SolFocus caught my attention is because of their association with
PARC. Admittedly, the Feb.
16th announcement that PARC had taken startup, SolFocus, under its wing
at PARC's own facilities in Palo Alto, didn't even make a blip on our radar screen
at the time. That's because the compound semi angle wasn't mentioned. The headlines
simply talked of "affordable energy" and were primarily focused on
boasting of PARC's new initiative for "clean technology". And I might
not have keyed in on it now except that IOP's Compound Semiconductor
magazine sensibly picked it up as a news
item. Buried down deep in SolFocus' July
25 company news release are the magic words... "high efficiency triple-junction
PV cells." FYI... silicon simply can't produce "high efficiency
triple-junction" photovoltaic cells. By covering Emcore, Tecstar and Spectrolab
over the years, I've come to learn that the words "high efficiency"
and "triple-junction" are strictly the domain of compound semi-based
photovoltaics (or "concentrator cells" or whatever else you want to
tag on to the end). Deep down in the SolFocus literature, there's a little GaAs on Ge mention. The mision now is to get PARC's and SolFocus' PR people
and the mainstream tech press to give the compounds the respect they deserve
as the heroes of next-gen solar. That way we might reach our goals of taking over terrestrial
applications from the world of silicon faster.
According to their July
25 news, SolFocus has just closed $25 million in equity financing, led by
New Enterprise Associates (NEA). The round also included seed investors NGEN
Partners and Yellowstone Capital. The funds are tagged to accelerate a large-scale
reliability test series and the production ramp of CPV modules at domestic and
offshore factories. Additionally the funds will help secure the long term supply of photovolaic cells.
I'm not yet sure if they'll make, buy, or license the basic cell technology
themselves. It could be they'll be a customer of someone like Emcore. We'll
see. Our guess is that they probably are not going to get into epi/cell manufacturing at this stage by the looks of their job postings. There's also a supportive and interesting quote from SolFocus board member Scott
Sandell of NEA saying, “Rapid growth in the $10 billion global market
for solar power is constrained by the availability and cost of silicon. SolFocus’
unique CPV technology eliminates the silicon bottleneck and significantly reduces
the cost of solar power. The product design combines leading-edge performance
of high-efficiency cells with low-cost optics in a fully enclosed, highly reliable
package. It is an innovative yet practical design that’s ready for large-scale
field testing and subsequent deployment.”
But... nowhere in the whole dang release does it say that the end product is
made of compound semi materials! That's always a big disappointment to us compound
semi fans. Compound semiconductors aren't even mentioned in the company description.
Maybe the fault lies in the fact that the news comes out of Silicon Valley
and that PARC, where SolFocus lives, has been a great pioneering entity for...
silicon. We definitely have to remedy that. Partly because of the clout of PARC
and SolFocus' investors, the startup is garnering excellent mainstream tech
press (ref: SolFocus news page).
I think I know how to make sure that they mention the compounds quickly, even though I don't yet know anyone
at the company. At the end of their news releases the contact name is "Bob
MacDonald". I'll simply call "cousin Bob" and set the record
straight. (The spelling of my name was originally MacDonald, so he
must be a cousin).
We've been fighting the silicon vs. compounds set the record straight
battle for years. Take the fight straight to the streets, I always say... and
these particular streets, where PARC lives, cross the very heart of Silicon
Valley. It's time for everyone to know that silicon is losing the battle for
solar cell dominance with each "high efficiency triple junction" compound
semiconductor cell that goes up in space or lands on a promising terrestrial
application. Thanks to compound semi solar leaders like Emcore and Spectrolab,
we've proved conclusively that this technology can outgun silicon. I bet there
are even people out there who think blue spectrum LEDs for solid state lighting
and the HBT power amps that are powering just about everything these days are
made of silicon. Our world has worked too hard to propagate such rubbish. Any
help you can provide to set the compound semi record straight will, of course,
be most appreciated... especially by the thousands of compound semi materials
research scientists and technologists worldwide... who did the real work.
Viva la compounds!
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