Backed by a A$5 million grant from the federal government, Australia's next-generation lighting company BluGlass Ltd has just opened a pilot manufacturing plant in Sydney. The plant will be used to demonstrate its light emitting diode (LED) technology and facilitate licensing.
BluGlass is
commercializing a unique Australian-bred manufacturing technology known
as remote plasma chemical vapor deposition (RPCVD) to reduce the cost
of gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor wafers, a core component of high
brightness LEDs.
BluGlass CEO Giles Bourne said: "Our lighting technology will have tremendous benefits for the environment because it not only produces LEDs without the emission of toxic gases, but LED lights use a fraction of the electricity of traditional incandescent bulbs.
"As well, we believe
that the ability of our patented RPCVD process to grow nitrides at low
temperatures has created new opportunities for hybrid technologies with
significant commercial prospects in areas such as oxide-nitride mixed
structures, solar technology and silicon."
The BluGlass RPCVD process has been developed as a more cost-effective alternative to the long established process of metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) for the manufacture of optoelectronic devices such as LEDs in the ultra-violet to green spectral range.
In a typical MOCVD process, deposition temperatures for GaN-based films are over 1,000*C and deposition is on synthetic sapphire and silicon carbide (SiC) substrates. The use of conventional group-III metal organic precursors trimethylgallium (TMGa), trimethylaluminium (TMAl) and trimethylindium (TMIn), along with ammonia as a nitrogen precursor is employed, with conventional technology separating supply of group-III and nitrogen precursors to prevent premature cross reactions. By using ammonia as the nitrogen precursor, a gas abatement system must be put in place to ensure the effective scrubbing of toxic process by-products.
The BluGlass RPCVD process has been developed as a lower temperature process of between 500 and 700*C for the deposition of crystalline GaN films, making it compatible with growth on glass substrates, as well as synthetic sapphire and silicon. The process doesn't require hydrogen or ammonia, and this results in less expensive gas abatement infrastructure with charcoal or activated alumina filters being sufficient, making the system friendlier to the environment and safer to operate with no toxic ammonia risk.
The new reactor will be used to demonstrate the significant energy and cost savings that BluGlass's process is expected to deliver for next-generation LED lighting products. An independent analysis of the technology has found that cost savings of more than 48% could be achieved at the wafer level.
BluGlass's low cost manufacture of GaN could allow LEDs into mass markets. BluGlass intends to sell its own reactors, license its technology and earn royalties from the LED chips that its clients produce.
Bourne said that BluGlass is aiming for sales towards the end of this year. "Our largest target market is Asia and we have been talking to all the major players in that region - especially in Taiwan, Korea, China and Malaysia.
Because within the next decade or two, every single light on this planet will move to LED technology, so interest in our process is strong. Yet 95% of LED use is in non-lighting technologies such as mobile appliances. So that is a huge and very diverse market that we are looking at."
by Neil Munro
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