Semiconductor today

Sivers Semiconductors AB of Kista, Sweden (which supplies RF beam-former ICs for SATCOMs and photonic lasers for AI data centers) has signed contracts for both the electronic warfare and 5G/6G chip development awards with the Northeast Microelectronics Coalition (NEMC) Hub through the US CHIPS and Science Act. Funding is provided under the Microelectronics Commons program, executed through the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Crane Division and the National Security Technology Accelerator (NSTXL)...

Shipments of micro light-emitting diode (LED) displays will surge to 34.6 million units by 2031, according to the ‘Micro LED Display Market Tracker – 4Q 2024’ of market research firm Omdia. However, despite this growth, micro LED displays are expected to account for just 0.9% of the total display market, as the technology remains competitive only in select applications over the forecast period...

At Photonics West 2025 in the Moscone Center, San Francisco (25–30 January), micro/nanotechnology R&D center CEA-Leti of Grenoble, France is presenting six papers (including an invited paper) detailing its recent breakthroughs and results for photonics-based applications...

For its fiscal first-quarter 2025 (to end-November 2024), LED chip and component maker SemiLEDs Corp of Hsinchu, Taiwan has reported revenue of $1.261m, down from $1.324 last quarter and $1.65m a year ago...

Micro-LED technology firm VueReal Inc of Waterloo, ON, Canada has appointed Giuseppe Buscemi as VP of semiconductor engineering. The firm reckons that, due to his extensive experience in semiconductor production facilities and deep knowledge of micro-LED technology, he will be pivotal in scaling its cartridge production capabilities to meet growing demand...

Plessey Semiconductors Ltd of Plymouth, UK — which develops embedded micro-LED technology for augmented-reality and mixed-reality (AR/MR) display applications — and Meta Platforms Inc have developed what is claimed to be the brightest red micro-LED display suitable for AR glasses. Offering up to 6,000,000nits at high resolution (<5μm) with ultra-low power consumption, it is reckoned to overcome critical technical challenges, helping to pave the way for the next computing platform...

Teledyne HiRel Semiconductors 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 announced the availability of its model TDSW84230EP gallium nitride (GaN) high-power RF switch. Optimized for aerospace & defense applications, it offers high peak power and is designed to replace positive-intrinsic-negative (PIN) diode-based RF switches commonly used in RF front ends of tactical and military communication radio systems...

Nanoelectronics research center imec of Leuven, Belgium has demonstrated electrically driven gallium arsenide (GaAs)-based multi-quantum-well nano-ridge laser diodes fully, monolithically fabricated on 300mm silicon wafers in its CMOS pilot prototyping line. Achieving room-temperature continuous-wave lasing with threshold currents as low as 5mA and output powers exceeding 1mW, the results are said to demonstrate the potential of direct epitaxial growth of high-quality III-V materials on silicon (‘GaAs nano-ridge laser diodes fully fabricated in a 300mm CMOS pilot line’, Yannick De Koninck et al, Nature, volume 637, pages 63–69 (2025)). imec reckons that this provides a pathway to the development of cost-effective, high-performance optical devices for applications in data communications, machine learning and artificial intelligence...

Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system maker Riber S.A. of Bezons, France says that long-standing US-based customer Teledyne Imaging Sensors (TIS) has placed a repeat order for an MBE 412 cluster research system (for delivery in 2025) to expand its production capacity and fulfill additional contracts for manufacturing new high-performance infrared devices...

ROHM has developed the RLD8BQAB3 high-output laser diode for use in ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) equipped with LiDAR for distance measurement and spatial recognition. In addition to automotive applications, the firm is also initially supplying samples targeting consumer applications (drones, robot vacuums, golf rangefinders) and industrial applications (AGVs, service robots, and 3D monitoring systems such as sensors for human/object detection)...

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2025) in Las Vegas (7–11 January), Aledia S.A of Echirolles, near Grenoble, France (a developer and manufacturer of 3D micro-LEDs for display applications based on its large-area gallium nitride nanowires-on-silicon platform) has announced the availability of its micro-LED technology for augmented reality applications and next-generation displays for vision applications...

Aehr Test Systems of Fremont, CA, USA has received an initial production order from a top-tier automotive semiconductor supplier for a FOX-XP wafer-level test and burn-in system with fully integrated FOX WaferPak Aligner for production test of its gallium nitride (GaN) power semiconductor devices. The system was scheduled to ship immediately...

Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system maker Riber S.A. of Bezons, France has received an order for a production MBE system from Almae Technologies SAS of Marcoussis, France — which was spun off in 2016 from III-V Lab of Palaiseau, France (the joint laboratory between Nokia, Thales and France’s micro/nanotechnology R&D center CEA-Leti in Grenoble) — in order to enhance its production of photonic components addressing the growing demand in telecoms and datacoms markets for ultra-high-speed optical data transmission, driven by the surge in artificial intelligence (AI) applications requiring increasingly higher data volumes...

AmpliTech Group Inc of Hauppauge, NY, USA – which designs, develops and makes signal-processing radio frequency (RF) microwave components and network solutions for satellite communications, telecoms (5G & IoT), space exploration, defense and quantum computing applications – says that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued another Notice of Allowance for its patent application related to its monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) low-noise amplifier (LNA) designs, based on its proprietary low-noise technology. The firm expects this and other previously announced patent certificates to be issued during first-quarter and second-quarter 2025...

Shares in China-based gallium nitride-on-silicon (GaN-on-Si) power chip maker InnoScience (Suzhou) Technology Holding Co Ltd began trading on 30 December after being listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in an initial public offering (IPO) of 45.36 million shares at HK$30.86 each, raising gross proceeds of HK$1.4bn (US$180m). The offer price range had been HKD30.86-33.66, aiming to raising up to HKD1.527bn ($193m)...

NUBURU Inc of Centennial, CO, USA — which was founded in 2015 and develops and manufactures high-power industrial blue lasers — has increased the size of its board of directors from four to six with the appointment of Dario Barisoni and Shawn Taylor for a term expiring at the 2025 annual meeting of shareholders (or until a respective successor is duly elected and qualified). They will also each serve on the board’s Audit Committee...

Light detection & ranging (LiDAR) solution provider Voyant Photonics of Long Island City, NY, USA has announced the availability of the CARBON frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) LiDAR sensor, featuring what is claimed to be the first truly effective and affordable LiDAR on a chip with solid-state beam steering...

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $179m in funding for three Microelectronics Science Research Centers (MSRCs), which will perform basic research in microelectronics materials, device and system design, and manufacturing science to transform future microelectronics technologies...

Polar Light Technologies (PLT) — which stems from research by founder professor Per-Olof Holtz and his team at Linköping University (with support from Sweden’s innovation agency Vinnova) — has fabricated 625nm-wavelength red-light-emitting pyramidal micro-LED based on its non-etching bottom-up concept. The firm has hence achieved red, green and blue pyramidal micro-LEDs using the same material compound...

Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn) of Taipei, Taiwan (the world’s largest electronics manufacturer and technology service provider) has entered the augmented reality (AR) glasses market by partnering with fabless micro-LED company Poro Technologies Ltd (a spin off from the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride at the UK’s University of Cambridge that has developed porous GaN material and has an R&D center in Hsinchu, Taiwan). The firms will leverage Porotech’s gallium nitride (GaN) technology and Foxconn’s vertical integration capabilities to develop micro-LED display technology and AR applications...