CS Industry Award Winners 2011

On 22nd March 2011, Compound Semiconductor Magazine hosted the “CS Europe Conference” at the Hilton Hotel, Frankfurt, Germany. Attended by 150 industry professionals from the compound semiconductor industry and early feedback suggests the conference was a resounding success. With a dual track conference session, pioneering companies from around the globe outlined the best opportunities for the compound semiconductor industry, and what has to be done to seize them. As part of the conference, Compound Semiconductor Magazine presented “The CS Industry Awards 2011”. These awards recognised success and development along the entire value chain of the Compound Semiconductor industry from research to completed devices, with a focus on the people, processes and products that drive the industry forward. The CS Industry Award Winners were shortlisted from 60 entries globally. A six week campaign through Compound Semiconductor saw 1500 industry specialists vote for their winners. The winners are: SUBSTRATES & MATERIAL AWARD Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. for the world’s first 6-inch diameter GaN substrates Sumitomo Electric unveiled its 6-inch diameter GaN substrates back in November 2010. The Japanese firm has been producing GaN for many years, and began with the manufacture of 2-inch material, before proceeding to manufacture larger diameter GaN substrates. Gallium nitride based materials enable better thermal dispersion than allowing LED manufacturers to reduce chip sizes and increase output power. Sumitomo anticipates that its 6-inch GaN substrates will also be used in power devices because of the excellent thermal conductivity, electric responsiveness and breakdown voltage of devices made using these materials. EPIWAFER PROCESSING AWARD EV Group for the 850TB/DB temporary bonding/debonding EV Group’s cost-effective method of temporary bonding of a device wafer to a carrier wafer prior to thinning was recognised for allowing device wafer thickness to be further reduced, enabling enhanced device performance. Additionally, temporary bonded wafers can be handled and processed like standard bulk wafers. Adding only two process steps, temporary bonding and debonding, allows thin wafer processing on standard equipment in any existing fab.     Richard Stevenson, Consulting Editor of CS Magazine presents CS Industry Award to EV Group   METROLOGY, TEST AND MEASUREMEANT AWARD Cascade Microtech, Inc. for the BlueRay DS Cascade Microtech’s innovative BlueRay DS probe station allows testing double sided substrates typically performed in a laboratory with the ability to meet the throughput and reliability requirements of a production environment. The BlueRay DS is a universal platform for a multitude of applications in semiconductor test such as LED, MEMS, and optical devices and has made testing backside-emitting LEDs possible. Cascade was awarded for being the first company to offer a modular wafer probing solution that grows with the process requirements of the development lab to the production fab. MOST INNOVATIVE DEVICE AWARD RF Micro Devices for the RFRD6460 PowerSmart RFMD’s RFRD6460 3G multi-band, multimode PowerSmart Power Platform is targeted at smartphones and mobile internet devices. The product was awarded for providing extensive flexibility and customisation, extensive battery life, all in a small footprint whilst accelerating original equipment manufacturer’s time to market. Furthermore, the RFRD6460 contains the industry’s first RF configurable power core, designed to seamlessly merge with its VSWR-tolerant, quadrature patented power amplifier technology. FAB MANAGEMENT AWARD Cree Inc. for 150-mm SiC substrates Cree was recognised for a breakthrough in the development and commercialisation of high quality 150-mm SiC substrates with micropipe densities of less than 10/cm2. The current Cree standard for SiC substrates is 100-mm diameter material. SiC is a high performance semiconductor material used in the production of a broad range of lighting, power and communication components, including LEDs, power switching devices and RF power transistors for wireless communications. The significant size advancement of single crystal SiC substrates to 150-mm can enable cost reduction and increased throughput. R & D AWARD TriQuint for its advanced GaN research and development After TriQuint received a DARPA research award of $16.2 million, and proceeded to develop new GaN based circuits through the Nitride Electronic NeXt-Generation Technology (NEXT) program. Much of the NEXT program is focused on developing devices that can be used in harsh environmental conditions experienced in aerospace and defence applications. There have been many new developments and these could set the stage for revolutionary new designs. TriQuint hopes that the leap in technology resulting from NEXT program research will be looked back upon as a significant turning point in the evolution of semiconductor engineering. The next edition of CS will provide more detailed analysis of all the winners from CS Industry Awards.