Semiconductor today

Cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film photovoltaic (PV) module maker First Solar Inc of Tempe, AZ, USA is to establish a new facility in Gaffney, Cherokee County, South Carolina, to onshore final production processes for Series 6 Plus modules initiated by the company’s international fleet. The firm expects to spend about $330m to establish the new facility, which is scheduled to begin commercial operation in second-half 2026. The facility is forecasted to create more than 600 new jobs with an average manufacturing salary of $74,000 per year, approximately twice the per capita income in Cherokee County...

The South Wales-based compound semiconductor cluster CSconnected has announced a £1m third call in its Supply Chain Development Programme (which was launched in March), delivered in partnership with Cardiff Capital Region (CCR), to accelerate the expansion of the compound semiconductor supply chain in South Wales. The initiative aims to drive job creation, stimulate economic growth and enhance the UK’s strategic position in advanced semiconductor manufacturing...

Specialty analog foundry Tower Semiconductor Ltd of Migdal Haemek, Israel has announced the expansion of its existing, mature 300mm wafer bonding technology (originally developed and in mass production for stacked BSI image sensors) to enable heterogeneous 3D-IC integration across its silicon photonics (SiPho) and silicon germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS processes, including full support by Cadence design tools for the stacked platform technology...

Ascent Solar Technologies Inc of Thornton, CO, USA – which designs and makes lightweight, flexible copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film photovoltaic (PV) panels that can be integrated into consumer products, off-grid applications and aerospace applications – has signed a teaming agreement with Louisiana- and Texas-based NovaSpark Energy, which designs and manufactures mobile hydrogen generation systems for fueling long-range drones and powering critical infrastructure...

NUBURU Inc of Centennial, CO, USA — which was founded in 2015 and developed and previously manufactured high-power industrial blue lasers — has updated its strategic alliance with Tekne S.p.A. (a provider of integrated electronic warfare and cyber capabilities in military vehicles). The companies, along with Tekne’s shareholders, signed a new letter of agreement on 10 November, superseding their previous understanding and establishing a renewed strategic and industrial partnership. This agreement will be implemented by NUBURU via its specialized subsidiary Nuburu Defense LLC, which is focused on delivering laser-based solutions for defense, security and critical infrastructure applications...

Cree LED Inc of Durham, NC, USA (a Penguin Solutions brand) has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois alleging that Promier Products (trading as LitezAll) and Tractor Supply Co have infringed its rights in the following patents by selling certain portable lighting products: United States Patent Nos. 9070850, 9754926, 10439112, 11791442, D790486 and D892066...

South Korea-based SK keyfoundry — which provides specialty analog and mixed-signal foundry services on 8-inch wafers for consumer, communications, computing, automotive and industrial applications — says that it is accelerating the development of silicon carbide (SiC)-based compound power semiconductor technology, bolstering its efforts for the global power semiconductor market. Leveraging its manufacturing expertise and intellectual property (IP) portfolio across the semiconductor manufacturing process, in first-half 2025 the firm acquired SK powertech (formerly Yes Power Technix, until its acquisition by SK Inc in 2022), which has core competencies in the SiC sector...

Infineon Technologies AG of Munich, Germany says that it is providing its gallium nitride (GaN) technology for the next generation of solar microinverters from global energy technology company Enphase Energy Inc, which is said to be the world’s leading supplier of microinverter-based solar and battery systems. Infineon’s CoolGaN bi-directional switch (BDS) technology enables significant enhancements in power output, energy efficiency and system reliability for Enphase’s IQ9 Series Microinverters. For the new IQ9N-3P Commercial Microinverter, this helps to simplify design complexity and lower installation and balance of system costs...

Led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) of Troy, NY, USA, a team that also includes researchers at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Florida State University and SUNY Buffalo has deepened the understanding of remote epitaxy, a manufacturing technique that entails growing high-quality semiconducting films on one substrate and then transferring them to a different one...

Photonic application-specific integrated circuit (PASIC) chip designer and manufacturer OpenLight of Santa Barbara, CA, USA (which launched as an independent company in June 2022, introducing the first open silicon photonics platform with heterogeneously integrated III-V lasers, modulators, amplifiers and detectors) says that, at the 15th International Symposium on Photonics and Electronics Convergence (ISPEC 2025) at Institute of Science Tokyo (17-18 November), its principal engineer and photonic integrated circuit (PIC) design expert Dr Molly Piels is giving a presentation on the latest advances in the heterogeneous integration of silicon and III-V materials and highlighting how they can be used to enable the fabrication of photonic components at scale. This includes a case study of the OpenLight Photonics Development Kit (PDK) that is helping to underpin growth in photonic IC manufacturing...

III–V Epi Ltd of Glasgow, Scotland, UK — which provides a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) service for custom compound semiconductor wafer design, manufacturing, test and characterization — says that its chief technical officer professor Richard Hogg is chairing two sessions at PCSEL 2025 (the International Workshop on PCSELs) held at the University of Glasgow on 10–12 November. This includes the Keynote Session ‘Progress of PCSELs’ from PCSEL research pioneer Susumu Noda, professor of Electronic Science and Engineering at Kyoto University in Japan...

Wolfspeed Inc of Durham, NC, USA — which makes silicon carbide (SiC) materials and power semiconductor devices — is collaborating with renewable energy solutions firm Hopewind of Shenzhen City (one of the largest wind power converter suppliers in China). Together, the two firms will advance the development of the next generation of wind power solutions by integrating Wolfspeed’s 2.3kV LM Pack Module into Hopewind’s highly modular and lightweight 950Vac Wind Power Converter...