Kyma Breaks Record with 300mm AlN on Silicon Template
Kyma Technologies has commissioned its new high volume Aluminum Nitride (AlN) template manufacturing tool with the world’s first 300mm (12-inch) diameter AlN on silicon template. The tool is suitable for high quality gallium nitride (AIN) growth. While other large area AlN processes have existed in the market for many years, Kyma’s says its tool is the first that is capable of direct insertion into existing light emitting diode (LED) and power device production. These processes also grow GaN and related alloys such as indium gallium nitride (InGaN) and aluminum gallium nitride (AlGaN). The new AlN template tool was designed and constructed by Bob Metzger, Kyma’s Chief Engineer; it incorporates many of the features of, as well as improvements to, Kyma’s patented and proprietary III-N Physical Vapour Deposition of NanoColumns (PVDNC) technology that the company has used for more than 10 years. Kyma initially used the PVDNC technology for its bulk GaN development efforts, until 2006, when the company began supplying AlN templates to the commercial market. Additional template substrates such as sapphire, patterned sapphire, and silicon carbide are also possible to run in the AlN process due to the system’s flexible design and Kyma’s long experience with PVDNC for nitride growth applications. “Market interest in our AlN templates has grown rapidly over the last 18 months, especially in the LED sector, where significant LED improvements have been observed by customers using our PVDNC AlN templates. Specific improvements cited include: improved wavelength and brightness binning, lower defect density in the LED active region, higher device thermal conductivity, and up to 30% higher MOCVD system throughput,” said Ed Preble, Kyma CTO and VP Business Development. “This new tool increases our capacity 10-fold for 2”, 3” and 4” wafers; enables us to address the growing demand for larger 150mm and 200mm diameters; and also further raises the bar with its 300mm capability. While we acknowledge that work remains to improve the deposition uniformity for 300mm sizes, we are positively thrilled with the uniformity and repeatability of the 2” through 200mm sizes and look forward to qualification of the new tool with our customers.” The company plans to demonstrate large diameter AlN templates on sapphire and to release the new AlN template tool for full production in the coming weeks. Kyma is a global supplier of crystalline gallium nitride (GaN) and aluminum nitride (AlN) materials for a broad range of high performance nitride semiconductor device applications. The company says the market for nitride semiconductor devices is expected to surpass $30B over the next decade and the market for nitride based LEDs grew at almost a 100% year-over-year rate in 2010 to nearly $12B.
