Semiconductor today

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...

Teledyne e2v HiRel Electronics of Milpitas, CA, USA (part of the Teledyne Defense Electronics Group that provides solutions, sub-systems and components to the space, transportation, defense and industrial markets) has released the TDGM650LS60, the first product in its new 650V power module family, which utilizes a Teledyne high-voltage gallium nitride (GaN) transistor and integrates an isolated driver in one package...

Gallium nitride-on-silicon (GaN-on-Si) power solutions firm Innoscience (Zhuhai) Technology Co Ltd of Suzhou, China says that it welcomes two decisions of 20 March by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to institute a review of the validity of the two remaining US patents, as asserted by Efficient Power Conversion Corp (EPC) of El Segundo, CA, USA against Innoscience. The USPTO wrote that “there is a reasonable likelihood that petitioner [Innoscience] would prevail with respect to at least one of the claims challenged in the petition.”...

Atomic layer etching (ALE) specialist AlixLabs AB of Stockholm, Sweden (which was spun off from Lund University in 2019) says that the European Union Intellectual Property Office has granted a certification of registration for its trademark APS (ALE Pitch Splitting). APS describes the company’s process that aims to enable the production of chips at Ångström scale at lower cost and energy use...

III–V Epi Ltd of Glasgow, Scotland, UK says that an exceptional 2023 saw unprecedented growth, strengthening its position in both global photonics manufacture and the quantum supply chain...

NUBURU Inc of Centennial, CO, USA — which was founded in 2015 and develops and manufactures high-power industrial blue lasers — has announced a $3m investment in its common stock by strategic investors focused on strengthening and growing the company. The firm has also announced initial purchase orders from new customers in new markets...