Rubicon aspires to move to large diameter sapphire
Executives from Rubicon Technology will speak about the company's “Move to Larger Diameter Sapphire Substrates” at the Strategies in Light 2012 conference in Santa Clara, California on Wednesday, February 8 from 4:00pm – 4:30pm.
Rubicon says that in order to support mass adoption of solid state lighting, a shift to larger diameter sapphire substrates must happen. Manufacturing efficiencies and cost reductions inherent in the large diameter platform set the stage for scaling up of the entire LED supply chain to meet the growing demand for LED chips. Rubicon's presentation will review why a large diameter wafer is essential to driving down costs and increasing yields to support aggressive cost targets of SSL, and will address trends that are on the horizon.
Having said that, 4, 6 and 8-inch silicon substrates are also being explored as an LED platform by a number of companies and R & D institutions. Although silicon substrates are far cheaper than sapphire, finding a stable process to make GaN on silicon epiwafers in volume, particularly for 8-inch wafers, could take some time.
As a vertically integrated supplier of sapphire substrates and products for the LED industry, Rubicon is one of the major sapphire wafer producers in the production of high yield, large diameter wafers. Upto now, Rubicon has shipped more than 230,000 large diameter wafers, produced from the raw material, through cutting and finishing polished wafers.
Bringing down the overall price of LEDs is a key element in supporting the worldwide commercial adoption of solid state lighting based on LEDs as a light source. According to market research firm DisplaySearch, the total average LED penetration in lighting was 1.4% in 2010 and is forecast to reach 9.3% in 2014. Government entities around the world including China, European Union, Australia, Canada and the United States have introduced legislation to require energy efficient lighting.
Who knows what material will dominate the LED substrate market, sapphire, silicon carbide or silicon? Or maybe something else?
