Semiconductor today

Gallium nitride (GaN) power IC and silicon carbide (SiC) technology firm Navitas Semiconductor Corp of Torrance, CA, USA says that its high-power GaNSafe family is now available in a TOLT (Transistor Outline Leaded Top-side cooling) package...

Photonic chips industry accelerator PhotonDelta of Eindhoven, the Netherlands (which connects and collaborates with an ecosystem of photonic chip technology organizations worldwide) is launching a global engineering contest in collaboration with engineering community and knowledge platform Wevolver to stimulate the creation of new applications for photonic chips that tackle global challenges...

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Independent power electronics company Quantum Power Transformation (QPT) Ltd of Cambridge, UK — which was founded in 2019 and develops gallium nitride (GaN)-based electric motor controls — has won a grant for the project VERDE to develop a high-frequency 400V/60kW GaN inverter demonstrator for automotive use that will help to demonstrate that GaN is now superior to silicon carbide (SiC) or silicon...

Keysight Technologies Inc of Santa Rosa, CA, USA has expanded its semiconductor test portfolio by introducing the 4881HV high-voltage wafer test system, which is said to improve the productivity of power semiconductor manufacturers by enabling parametric tests up to 3kV supporting high- and low-voltage in one-pass test...

In a strategic move to consolidate its position in infrared sensors, Lynred of Grenoble, France, which designs and manufactures infrared (IR) sensors for aerospace, defense and commercial applications, has acquired Paris-based New Imaging Technologies, which designs and manufactures shortwave-infrared (SWIR) imaging sensors and modules based on indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) focal plane arrays. Lynred’s product portfolio will expand to include high-definition large-array SWIR sensors in small pixel pitch, bolstering its product range across all wavelength bands (short to very longwave). The transaction is expected to close in fourth-quarter 2024 and is subject to customary conditions...

NUBURU Inc of Centennial, CO, USA — which was founded in 2015 and develops and manufactures high-power industrial blue lasers — has announced a funding program of about $65m, comprising $15m of direct private investment in public equity (PIPE) and $50m equity line of credit, enabling it to accelerate commercialization with predictable access to capital...

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a three-year, $2m Future of Semiconductors (FuSe2) grant to researchers at Penn State University and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) to develop wireless communications and sensing platforms through advanced chips and packaging...

Backed by funding from Innovate UK (which provides funding and support for business innovation as part of UK Research and Innovation) under the ‘Scalable Quantum Network Technologies: Collaborative R&D’ program, the £1.5m MARCONI project on quantum key distribution (QKD) is developing and demonstrating high-fidelity modular and scalable receiver modules...

HyperLight Corp of Cambridge, MA, USA — which designs and manufactures photonic integrated circuits (PICs) based on its proprietary production-grade thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) platform — has raised $37m in a Series B funding round led by Summit Partners and including existing investors Xora Innovation (a deep tech venture fund backed by Temasek) and Foothill Ventures. Summit Partners’ managing director & CEO Peter Chung joins HyperLight’s board of directors...

For display applications, Polar Light Technologies (PLT) — which stems from research by founder professor Per-Olof Holtz and his team at Sweden’s Linköping University — has created novel gallium nitride (GaN) pyramidal micro-LEDs that are directly bonded to indium pads on a silicon chip. This new method, where LEDs are built from the bottom up, avoids the surface damage seen in traditional top-down methods, resulting in much better optical performance...

HexaTech Inc of Morrisville, NC, USA (a subsidiary of Stanley Electric Co Ltd of Tokyo, Japan) has signed a multi-year contract with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of its recently announced Ultra-Wide Bandgap Semiconductors (UWBGS) program, which aims to develop foundational, high-quality materials necessary for realizing practical UWBG electronics and enabling UWBG applications...

US-based Raytheon (a business of aerospace & defense company RTX) has been awarded a three-year, two-phase contract from the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop foundational ultra-wide-bandgap semiconductors (UWBGS), based on diamond and aluminium nitride (AlN) technology, which allow increased power delivery and thermal management in sensors and other electronic applications...

To transform US military ground combat vehicles, the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has been selected to redesign a critical component: the traction inverter, which controls the flow of electricity between a vehicle’s battery, motor and drivetrain. The new silicon carbide (SiC)-based propulsion system will double the range of Army vehicles with a footprint four times smaller than its predecessors...

BluGlass Ltd of Silverwater, Australia — which develops and manufactures gallium nitride (GaN) blue laser diodes based on its proprietary low-temperature, low-hydrogen remote-plasma chemical vapor deposition (RPCVD) technology — has signed an agreement with Macquarie University (project lead) and defence company Aurizn to develop and test a new laser-based method to measure subsurface water temperature and depth. BluGlass will provide visible GaN lasers, partially funded by an Australia's Economic Accelerator (AEA) seed grant to support the commercialization of visible lasers in maritime applications...

Innovate UK (part of UK Research and Innovation) has issued details of the 16 projects that are to share £11.5m of funding as part of a collaborative R&D drive...

Automotive supplier DENSO Corp of Kariya, Aichi prefecture, Japan and Japan-based power semiconductor device maker ROHM Co Ltd have agreed to begin considering establishing a strategic partnership on semiconductors...

With efficiency and energy sustainability being key drivers of LED selection for industrial and outdoor lighting applications, LED product and lighting maker Lumileds LLC of San Jose, CA, USA says that its new LUXEON 5050 HE Plus can deliver luminous efficacy of 199lm/W and luminous flux of 746lm, as well as reducing application power consumption by 18% or more in critical infrastructure applications common to cities and businesses around the world. Further, the lower energy consumption of the LUXEON 5050 HE Plus supports the transition to low-carbon or no-carbon electricity supply. OEMs can achieve greater sustainability in their manufacturing process by reducing the physical material in both the heatsink and the system’s driver...

At the 2024 International Conference on Silicon Carbide and Related Materials (ICSCRM) in Raleigh, NC, USA (29 September-4 October), ASM International N.V. of Almere, the Netherlands, which designs and manufactures semiconductor wafer processing equipment and process solutions, has introduced the dual-chamber PE2O8 silicon carbide (SiC) epitaxy system. Designed to address the needs of the SiC power device segment, the PE2O8 is claimed to be the benchmark epitaxy system for low defectivity and high process uniformity, all with the higher throughput and low cost of ownership needed to enable broader adoption of SiC devices...

LED product and lighting maker Lumileds LLC of San Jose, CA, USA claims to be first to demonstrate that rich deep red light (615nm dominant wavelength corresponding with 635nm peak) can be produced with indium gallium nitride (InGaN) LEDs, achieving a wall-plug efficiency of 7.5% at a current density of 10A/cm2. The firm says that its breakthroughs address the challenges associated with high indium concentrations, including spectral peak shifts and broadening with current density...