Veeco bags $10 million MOCVD deal in China
US-based equipment supplier Veeco Instruments says it has received an order in excess of $10 million for a number of its “GaNzilla” MOCVD production systems.
The order came from Fujian Quanzhou Sanan Group, a manufacturer of high-brightness (HB) LEDs based in Fujian Province, China.
GaNzilla systems are used in high-volume manufacture of blue, green and white LEDs. The major order is another sign of the strength of the HB-LED industry in Asia, which has grown rapidly recently.
Only last month, the Taiwanese LED manufacturer South Epitaxy ordered five GaNzilla tools, while a recent report from Strategies Unlimited suggested that manufacturers in the non-Japan region of Asia accounted for 40% of the world’s GaN-based LED chips in 2003.
Meanwhile, the worldwide GaN LED market is forecast to almost double from its current size to reach around $5 billion by 2008.
Veeco says that the tools purchased by Fujian Quanzhou Sanan will be shipped to China over the coming year.
Xiu Cheng Lin is president and CEO of the Chinese company. He said: “With this significant expansion of our production capacity, we are taking a major step towards achieving our stated goal – becoming the leading supplier of LED materials in China.”
In Veeco’s financial results for the quarter ending March 31 2004, the company saw its overall loss shrink on increased revenue, partly thanks to the MOCVD product line it acquired from Emcore last year.
Compared with $65.8 million in the same period of 2003, revenue was up by more than 40% to $94.5 million. Despite this growth, the company still made a net loss of $0.7 million, down from $1.7 million a year ago. Operating income has now moved into the black, however.
