GaN crystal firm up for sale
Warsaw-based Ammono is up for auction with an initial price of €3.5 million
Ammono, the Warsaw company behind an innovative method of making nearly perfect GaN crystals, is up for auction with an initial price of €3.5 million.
Instead of growing crystals using vapour deposition (which is the approach taken by other GaN substrate makers), Ammono grows them under high heat and pressure. It then slices them salami style to be turned into 2 inch substrates on which semiconductors are grown.
These near perfect crystals offer the possibility of higher yields of violet lasers, more efficient GaN-based power handling chips, and even better performing LEDs.
Ammono has been in and out of receivership since 2015. The Japanese firm Nichia, which, became a financial backer back in 1999, is still involved as a minority shareholder. But the current situation has been brought about by conflict with the latest investor, according to Ammono's president Robert Dwilinski, who pioneered the development of the firm's GaN crystal growth process.
Last year, the Polish Academy of Sciences' Institute of High Pressure Physics (IHPP PAS) became Ammono's "˜leaseholder'. The tenancy, established by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, was to enable a close cooperation between the groups involved in ammonothermal and HVPE crystallisation of GaN.
Ammono will be sold with all assets including thousands of crystal seeds, autoclaves and crystal machining equipment, characterisation tools like high resolution X-ray diffractometer, AFM, and patents. Offers must be submitted by the 15th June 2018 (details below).
