Semiconductor today

Independent deep-tech venture capital fund PhotonVentures says that its second fundraising round of over €15m has been completed, bringing the fund’s total to the targeted €75m, following the first €60m round led by PhotonDelta and private investors...

ams OSRAM GmbH of Premstätten, Austria and Munich, Germany has joined forces with Malaysia-based automotive LED maker DOMINANT Opto Technologies in a strategic partnership aimed at integrating ams OSRAM’s Open System Protocol (OSP) into DOMINANT Opto Technologies’ next-generation intelligent RGB LEDs designed for automotive ambient lighting...

SweGaN AB of Linköping, Sweden has entered a strategic partnership with South Korea-based RFHIC Corp, which designs and manufactures GaN RF & microwave high-power semiconductor components and hybrid modules for applications in wireless communications, defense & aerospace, and RF Energy (industrial, scientific & medical). The new agreement encompasses an undisclosed equity investment from RFHIC. The two companies will focus on joint R&D and new product development...

Chicony Power Technology Co Ltd of New Taipei, Taiwan has announced the winners of its Annual Partner Awards, honoring Infineon Technologies AG of Munich, Germany as its 2023 ‘GaN Strategic Partner of the Year’...

Micro-LED display startup Q-Pixel Inc of Los Angeles, CA, USA has achieved what it claims is the highest-resolution active-matrix color display: 3K x 1.5K resolution in a screen of ~1.1cm x 0.6cm...

For full-year 2023, molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system maker Riber S.A. of Bezons, France has reported revenue of €39.3m, up 41% on 2022’s €27.8m...

Compound Semiconductor Applications (CSA) Catapult has issued its annual report for the financial year 2022–23, highlighting progress in its two focus areas — Net Zero and Future Telecoms — and describing how it has helped industry to bring next-generation compound semiconductor technologies to market...

Materials, networking and laser technology firm Coherent Corp of Saxonburg, PA, USA has secured $15m in funding from the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act of 2022 that provided the US Department of Defense (DoD) with $2bn to strengthen and revitalize the US semiconductor supply chain...

A new £1.6m facility to help accelerate electrification across the UK has officially been opened at the Compound Semiconductor Applications (CSA) Catapult in Newport, South Wales...

Epiwafer and substrate maker IQE plc of Cardiff, Wales, UK has announced an expansion of its partnership with Taiwan-based compound semiconductor wafer foundry Advanced Wireless Semiconductor Company (AWSC) with a multi-year supply agreement...

For its fiscal third-quarter 2024 (to end-February), semiconductor production test and reliability qualification equipment supplier Aehr Test Systems of Fremont, CA, USA has reported revenue of $7.56m, more than halving from $17.2m a year ago and $21.4m last quarter. The drop reflects delays in wafer-level burn-in system orders for silicon carbide (SiC) devices used in electric vehicles that have created a short-term gap in revenue and profitability...

Governor Phil Scott has reiterated his support for Vermont’s Tech Hub V-GaN by devoting resources to gallium nitride (GaN)-related activities in the State...

Gallium nitride-on-silicon (GaN-on-Si) power solutions firm Innoscience says that it firmly denounces the accusations made on 13 March by Infineon Technologies in a patent infringement lawsuit against three Innoscience entities...

Houqiang Fu, an assistant professor of electrical engineering in Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, has received a 2024 National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award to explore the potential of the ultrawide-bandgap semiconductor material aluminum nitride (AlN) for enhanced power electronics...

Efficient Power Conversion Corp (EPC) of El Segundo, CA, USA — which makes enhancement-mode gallium nitride on silicon (eGaN) power field-effect transistors (FETs) and integrated circuits for power management applications — has launched the EPC9192 reference design, enabling powerful, compact and efficient Class-D audio amplifiers. The EPC9192 showcases the capabilities of EPC’s 200V EPC2307 eGaN FETs in a ground-referenced, split-dual-supply single-ended (SE) design, delivering 700W per channel into a 4Ω load...

AXT Inc of Fremont, CA, USA — which makes gallium arsenide (GaAs), indium phosphide (InP) and germanium (Ge) substrates and raw materials — says that it expects to report revenue of $22.4–22.7m for first-quarter 2024, up from $19.4m a year ago and last quarter’s $20.4m, and exceeding its prior guidance of $20–22m...

Deposition equipment maker Aixtron SE of Herzogenrath, near Aachen, Germany has received the Gold Supplier Award from China-based chipmaker BOE HC SemiTek for their collaboration on micro-LED technology. The partnership spans more than 19 years, evolving since 2022 into a close collaboration focusing on 150mm gallium nitride (GaN) and arsenide-phosphide (AsP) materials for the development of micro-LED technologies...

Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Electric Corp has begun shipping samples of a DFB-CAN distributed feedback laser diode with built-in wavelength monitor. The new light source — reckoned to be the industry’s first to use the inexpensive TO-56CAN package (often used for low-speed optical signals, such as passive optical networks) for digital coherent communication capable of high-speed, long-distance transmission — is expected to contribute to the realization of ultra-small, low-power consumption of optical transceiver modules...

Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics (IAF) of Freiburg, Germany has developed single-mode gallium antimonide (GaSb) VECSELs with what are reckoned to be best-in-class output powers of up to 2.4W, enabling quantum frequency conversion as a low-noise pump source...

At the Optical Fiber Communication conference (OFC 2024) in San Diego, CA, USA (26–28 March), Adtran Inc of Huntsville, AL, USA (which provides open, disaggregated networking and communications solutions for voice, data, video and internet communications) and vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) maker Vertilas GmbH of Garching bei München, Germany announced what is claimed to be the industry’s first 100Gb/s PAM4 single-mode VCSEL technology with capabilities up to 1.6Tb/s. It is said to set new standards for low power consumption in optical engines and modules, with up to 80% reduction in power on the transmit optics compared with conventional solutions...