Semiconductor today

Avalanche photodiode (APD) infrared sensor designer and manufacturer Phlux Technology (which was spun out of the UK’s Sheffield University, with a seed funding round of £4m led by Octopus Ventures in December 2022) has announced its first products, the Aura family of 1550nm infrared (IR) devices based on the firm’s Noiseless InGaAs APD technology. The sensors are claimed to be 12x more sensitive than traditional best-in-class indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) APDs. As a result, the operating range of LiDAR, laser range-finders, and optical fiber test equipment can be extended by up to 50% with Phlux sensors, which are drop-in replacements for existing surface-mount or TO-packaged components...

Nichia Corp of Tokushima, Japan — the world’s largest gallium nitride (GaN)-based light-emitting diode/laser diode (LED/LD) manufacturer and inventor of high-brightness blue and white LEDs — has commercialized a chip-scale LED (part number NFSWL11A-D6) that achieves a horizontal light distribution...

At the SPIE Photonics West 2024 exhibition in San Francisco, CA, USA (30 January–1 February), UV-C LED maker Silanna UV of Brisbane, Australia is sharing booth #237 with Marktech Optoelectronics Inc of Latham, NY, USA (a designer and manufacturer of optoelectronics components and assemblies), denoting the start of Marktech commencing distribution of Silanna’s new 235nm and 255nm UVC LEDs, which are said to enable safer, more eco-friendly, lower-power germicidal UV solutions, and chemical or material sensing...

UK-based Oxford Instruments says that its atomic layer deposition (ALD) equipment has been installed at an “award-winning UK micro-LED provider” to support the latest consumer-immersive reality products and display devices. The system is used to deposit high-K dielectric ultra-thin films for high-density, very high-brightness, low-power and high-frame-rate RGB pixel arrays for consumer augmented-, virtual- and mixed-reality devices and smart watches...

Riber S.A. of Bezons, France — which makes molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) systems as well as evaporation sources — has received an order from a “major compound semiconductor industrial customer in Asia” for three production systems: two MBE 412 systems and one MBE 6000 system (for delivery in 2024)...

Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Electric Corp is to release six new J3-Series power semiconductor modules for various electric vehicles (xEVs), featuring either a silicon carbide metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (SiC-MOSFET) or a silicon-based RC-IGBT (insulated-gate bipolar transistor), with compact designs and scalability for use in the inverters of electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). All six J3-Series products will be available for sample shipments from 25 March...

In booth #2245 at the Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC 2024) in Long Beach, CA (25–29 February), SemiQ Inc of Lake Forest, CA, USA — which designs, develops and manufactures silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductors and 150mm SiC epitaxial wafers for high-frequency, high-temperature and high-efficiency power semiconductor devices — is debuting new portfolio of QSiC 1200V MOSFET modules, which are designed to operate reliably in challenging conditions and enable high-performance, high-density implementation while minimizing both dynamic and static losses...

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) and Taiwan-based foundry Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC) have announced a strategic partnership in micro-LEDs for display applications...

Infineon Technologies AG of Munich, Germany and Wolfspeed Inc of Durham, NC, USA — which makes silicon carbide (SiC) materials and power semiconductor devices — have expanded and extended their existing long-term 150mm silicon carbide wafer supply agreement, originally signed in February 2018 (when Wolfspeed was known as Cree). The extended partnership includes a multi-year capacity reservation agreement. It contributes to Infineon’s general supply chain stability, also with regard to the growing demand for silicon carbide semiconductor products for automotive, solar and electric vehicle (EV) applications and energy storage systems...

Vacuum pumps and systems manufacturer Busch Vacuum Solutions of Maulburg, Germany and Pfeiffer Vacuum of Aßlar, Germany (also part of the Busch Group) are jointly constructing a new sales, systems and service center in Sisseln, Switzerland, 35km east of Basel, for completion in 2025...

IC and integrated module supplier Sivers Semiconductors AB of Kista, Sweden says that its subsidiary Sivers Photonics of Glasgow, Scotland, UK has received new orders and requests worth about $860,000 (SEK9m) from its first established US Fortune 100 customer, estimated to be delivered mostly during first-half 2024 (including some contingency planning that up to 25% that may be delivered later)...

As part of the IEIIT-Reunion in Turin, Italy on 20 December, VCSELence Torino was inaugurated as a center of excellence (CoE). The primary scientific and technological goals are to investigate vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) for applications in high-speed optical fiber data transmission links and optical sensing. Relying on its established technical background in VCSELs, VCSELence targets the experimental exploitation of these devices, pushing their application beyond the current limits by performing modelling of the in-laser phenomena, supported by in-house experiments, with final testing of the device in the entire system...

Cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film photovoltaic (PV) module maker First Solar Inc of Tempe, AZ, USA has acquired a 1.2 million square-foot facility in Troy Township, Ohio. Formerly known as Peloton Output Park, the facility is expected to be repurposed into a new distribution center serving First Solar’s Ohio manufacturing footprint, which comprises three manufacturing facilities with a combined annual nameplate capacity of about 6GW at the end of 2023...

ams OSRAM GmbH of Premstätten, Austria and Munich, Germany has launched a series of sidelooker, low-power LEDs that, it claims, simplify design, are easier to implement and enables the creation of a homogeneous appearance in extended light bars and other automotive rear lighting applications...

For fourth-quarter 2023, Guerrilla RF Inc (GRF) of Greensboro, NC, USA — which develops and manufactures radio-frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) and monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) for wireless applications — has reported revenue of $4.7m, up 38% on $3.4m in Q32023 and up 95.8% on $2.4m a year ago...

Nichia Corp of Tokushima, Japan — the world’s largest gallium nitride (GaN)-based light-emitting diode/laser diode (LED/LD) manufacturer and inventor of high-brightness blue and white LEDs — says that its laser diode technology has been recognized for its contribution to the advancement of the motion picture industry by receiving a Scientific and Technical Awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)...

Materials, networking and laser technology firm Coherent Corp of Saxonburg, PA, USA has introduced of an illumination module platform for short- and mid-range light detection & ranging (LiDAR) in automotive safety and robotic vision in industrial applications...

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) has published a new Implementation Agreement (IA) for Common Electrical I/O (CEI) CEI-112G-XSR+-PAM4 Extended Extra Short Reach...

Transphorm Inc of Goleta, near Santa Barbara, CA, USA — which designs and makes JEDEC- and AEC-Q101-qualified gallium nitride (GaN) field-effect transistors (FETs) for high-voltage power conversion — has announced the availability of two new 650V SuperGaN devices in a 4-lead TO-247 package (TO-247-4L)...

Semiconductor manufacturing equipment maker Revasum Inc of San Luis Obispo, CA, USA and Asahi Diamond America Inc, a provider of diamond and cubic boron nitride tools, have announced a strategic collaboration aimed at enhancing silicon carbide (SiC) wafer grinding...