Three-Fives and Silicon Heterostructures

ANNIVERSARY ISSUEA decade of compound

semiconductor coverage

A look back at the big stories from 1995 to 2005The technologies that are set to shape the next decade

September 2005 Volume 11 Number 8

http://www.intrinsicsemi.com

SEPTEMBER 2005 VOLUME 11 NUMBER 8

Philips takes full control of Lumileds, buyingout Agilent’s 47% share of the company. p5

The US Navy selects GigaBeam’s wirelesstechnology for onboard communication. p7

Bookham reveals why its tunable laser issuited to next-generation networks. p33

5 Headline News Philips acquires Lumileds as Agilent cashes in on semiconductor group...IBM and Infineon look to topple GaAs with SiGe...Letters

7 GaAs & Wireless News 3G phones present opportunityfor rivals to gain on GaAs market leaders...GigaBeam uses InPfor 10Gb/s wireless...Patents strengthen Anadigics’IC design...Hittite Microwave shares launched on the NASDAQ...Filtronic ramps GaAs output to meet order... Kopin’s HBT business remains steady

11 LED News Epistar and UEC form Taiwanese giant... Record-busting Cree inks $20 m USAF deal...iSuppli predicts slowdown in HB-LEDs

12 Opto News Chip giant Vishay to buy CyOptics’ Israel facility...Emcore boosted by $8 m solar panel order... Princeton Lightwave targets eye-safe laser...Jenoptik’s laser diode bar breaks 400 W barrier...Alfalight bags equity and innovation funds

15 Fiber News Bookham outlines plan to raise cash as sales grow...T-Networks and ASIP merge to form Apogee Photonics...Fiber component makers secure funding

16 Wide Bandgap News SiC modules set to cut size of ship transformers...TDI unveils InN-on-sapphire templates...Raytheon wins $10 m GaN radar contract

36 M&E News Freiberger makes gains as GaAs ramps... IQE reports increase in half-year revenue...Aixtron reduces forecast for full-year sales

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 2005 1

On the cover: It’s 10 years since Compound Semiconductor magazine launched. The “10” on our cover features detail from a GaN transistor wafer made byTriQuint Semiconductor.

NEWS

17 10 years: celebrating a decade of compound semiconductor coverageCompound Semiconductor magazine is 10 years old. And,just like most of the rest of the industry, it has been througha few ups and downs during that time. Here, we take a lookback at some of the highlights – and lowlights – that haveshaped the industry over the past decade.

COVER STORY: ANNIVERSARY ISSUE

25 Kopin bandgap engineering improves HBT performanceHigh-speed MMICs with lower turn-on voltages can bebuilt by switching GaAs-HBTs for GAIN-HBTs with adilute nitride base, say Matt Micci and Roger Welser. Theadvancement could allow mobile phone designers to buildmore reliable handsets operating at higher data-rates.

33 Bookham targets integration sweet spot for metro networkA tunable laser and a broadband modulator provide thebest option for next-generation metro networks, accordingto Bookham. This combination can ease the transitionfrom fixed-wavelength components to broadbandmonolithic transmitters. Richard Stevenson reports.

FEATURES

Compound Semiconductor’s circulationfigures are audited by BPA International

29 Infinera moves in for the long haul as fiber recoversAt the height of the photonics boom, Dave Welch helpedorchestrate the merger of SDL and JDS Uniphase. Nowchief technology officer at start-up Infinera, he’s led thedevelopment of a digital optical network system based onmassively integrated InP chips. Michael Hatcher hearsabout Infinera’s recipe for success as growth returns to theoptical telecoms business.

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Editor Michael Hatchermichael.hatcher@iop.orgTel: +44 117 930 1013. Fax: +44 117 925 1942

Features editor Richard Stevensonrichard.stevenson@iop.orgTel: +44 117 930 1192

Consulting editor Tim Whitakertim.whitaker@ledsmagazine.comTel: +44 117 930 1233

Commercial manager Rebecca Griffithsrebecca.griffiths@iop.orgTel: +44 117 930 1032. Fax: +44 117 930 1178

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Circulation manager Jackie Kingjackie.king@iop.orgTel: +44 117 930 1218. Fax +44 117 930 1178

Publisher Sarah Chilcottsarah.chilcott@iop.orgTel: +44 117 930 1020

Production Lindsey Coles, Lucy PattersonAd production Jackie Cooke, Katie Graham,Tanwen HafArt directorAndrew GiaquintoTechnical illustratorAlison ToveyPublishing director Richard Roe

SubscriptionsAvailable free of charge to qualifying individualsworking at compound semiconductor fabs andfoundries. For further information visitcompoundsemiconductor.net/subscribe.Subscriptions for individuals not meeting qualifyingcriteria: individual £82/$148 US/7119; library£184/$331 US/7267. Orders to CompoundSemiconductor, WDIS, Units 12 & 13, CranleighGardens Industrial Estate, Southall, MiddlesexUB1 2DB, UK. Tel: +44 208 606 7518; Fax: +44 208 606 7303. General enquiries:compoundsemi@iop.org.

7979 total qualified circulation*

*June 2004 BPA audit statement

Editorial boardMayank Bulsara Atlas Technology (USA);Andrew Carter Bookham Technology (UK);Jacob Tarn Epistar/Gigacomm (Taiwan); Ian Ferguson Georgia Institute of Technology(USA); Toby Strite JDS Uniphase (USA); MarkWilson Motorola (USA); Dwight Streit NorthropGrumman (USA); Joseph Smart RF Micro Devices(USA); Colombo Bolognesi Simon FraserUniversity (Canada); Shuji Nakamura Universityof California at Santa Barbara (USA)

©2005 IOP Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.

US mailing information: CompoundSemiconductor (ISSN 1096-598X) is published 11 times a year for $148 by Institute of PhysicsPublishing, Dirac House, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6BE, UK. Periodicals postage paid atMiddlesex, NJ 08846. POSTMASTER: sendaddress corrections to Compound Semiconductor,c/o PO Box 177, Middlesex, NJ 08846. US agent:Pronto Mailers Association Inc, 200 Wood Avenue,PO Box 177, Middlesex, NJ 08846.

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Advertisers’ Index

Ten years on from the first edition of Compound Semiconductorand the more things change, the more some other things justseem to stay the same. In issue one of this magazine, the focuswas on short-wavelength light emitters. Emcore had justdemonstrated that GaN-based blue devices could be made inone of its multi-wafer MOCVD tools, Nichia was ramping up

LED production in Japan and Shuji Nakamura would shortly astonisheverybody with a GaN-on-sapphire laser.

Since then, we’ve moved on in leaps and bounds technologically, andsome of the applications hinted at back in 1995 – high-density optical datastorage, green LED traffic signals and solid-state white-light illumination –have become a reality. The LED industry is now worth $5 billion annuallyand is consistently hitting the headlines. This month’s big news is thatPhilips is to take full control of Lumileds, its joint venture with Agilent,while two of Taiwan’s top chip suppliers are merging to create a companywith formidable manufacturing capacity.

The general illumination market is the ultimate prize for these companies,and having a light-bulb producer controlling Lumileds ought to help thatdrive. But according to both the Philips CEO Gerard Kleisterlee and thelatest reports, the days of the humble bulb are far from over. LEDs will haveto deliver a significantly brighter output at a much lower cost per lumenbefore that happens. Perhaps our 15th anniversary will mark that occasion.

There is another, sadder, parallel between 1995 and 2005. Both years sawthe MANTECH conference (back then known as the US Conference onGaAs Manufacturing Technology) held in the incomparable surroundingsof New Orleans.

As I write, a helpless “Big Easy” is drowning in floodwaters after taking adirect hit from angry Hurricane Katrina. The city will take years to recover.And while most of the compound semiconductor industry in the US can befound on the East and West coasts, some of our community is based nearthe Gulf of Mexico – companies such as the Mississippi State Universityspin-out SemiSouth. We wish them well.

Michael Hatcher

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 2005

Ten years on...

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HEADLINE NEWS compoundsemiconductor.net

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 2005 5

Philips acquires Lumileds as Agilentcashes in on semiconductor groupBy Michael HatcherAgilent Technologies, one of the compoundsemiconductor industry’s biggest players, isexiting the chip manufacturing business.

The lighting and consumer electronicsgiant Philips has bought out the company’sstake in Lumileds in a deal worth around$1 billion (see box), and the remainder of theSilicon Valley company’s chip operation willbe snapped up by two private equity firms.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and SilverLake Partners will take control of Agilent’ssemiconductor products group (SPG) aftersealing the $2.66 billion cash acquisition.

That cash will be returned to Agilent inves-tors through a $4 billion share repurchase pro-gram and Agilent will become a “pure-play”measurement company.

Speculation has surrounded Agilent’s SPGfor months, with hints that the group wouldbe auctioned off, enabling Agilent to benefitfrom the higher margins it makes in the testand measurement and life science sectors.CEO Bill Sullivan said of the sale: “Webelieve that the SPG can best realize its fullpotential as an independent company.”

“This is good news for our customers andemployees,” said the SPG’s CEO, Dick Chang,who will continue in his role despite the switch.

Agilent is probably best known in the III-Vcommunity for the expertise in LEDs andfiber-optic components that it inherited fromits parent company, Hewlett-Packard. How-ever, it also manufactured E-mode PHEMTsat a 6 inch GaAs wafer fab in Fort Collins, CO.

But Agilent has struggled against the incum-bent GaAs power amplifier suppliers in thecell-phone handset sector, according to StephenEntwistle from the market analyst firm StrategyAnalytics. And the new owners of Agilent’sGaAs business will not be able to rely on aparent company as a potential customer forthese products, unlike Freescale, Motorola’ssemiconductor-manufacturing spin-out.

With the SPG supplying such a diverse setof products to a wide range of customers, thenew owners face the challenge of generatinga coherent strategy, said Entwistle. Both ofthe equity firms stress that they take a long-term view towards their investments, and aKKR spokesperson confirmed that the newowners have no current plans to sell portions

of the SPG, stating: “We intend to maximizegrowth for the company as a whole.”Although the world-leading fiber-optic andLED divisions would prove highly attractiveto prospective buyers, the GaAs divisionmay not be so desirable in what is already acrowded marketplace.

The acquisition sees the SPG, which thenew management team plans to rename beforethe expected close of the deal on October 31,become the world’s largest privately held,independent semiconductor company. It rep-resents the new owners’first direct foray intothe III-V industry. As well as having a largestake in the retailer Toys R Us and bed spe-

cialist Sealy, KKR’s investment portfolioincludes several technology companies, suchas Austria-based lighting specialist, Zumtobel.Zumbotel’s subsidiary, TridonicActo, recentlysigned a joint-venture deal with LED makerToyoda Gosei (see Compound SemiconductorMay 2005 p9).

Silver Lake’s investments are focusedsolely on technology companies, and it listsdisk-drive maker Seagate in its portfolio.

In Agilent’s most recent financial quarter,the SPG saw a 2% drop in revenue year-on-year to $458 million. But orders were up 25%from last year, something that will undoubt-edly please the new owners of the business.

Lighting pioneer RoyalPhilips Electronics is to buyAgilent Technologies’ 47%share in LED manufacturerLumileds for t765 million($948 million) in cash.

Netherlands-basedPhilips will now own 96.5%of Lumileds, and theremaining 3.5% will be heldby an employee trustcompany. Even so, Agilentsays that Lumileds willremain a “strategic partner”and supplier to Agilent.

The change in ownershipmeans that two of theworld’s lighting industrypowerhouses, Philips andGermany-based Osram,now have controlling sharesin LED chip-manufacturingsubsidiaries. This appearsto shift the center of gravityof the solid-state lightingindustry towards Europe.

Lumileds, which wasfounded in 1999 as a jointventure, makes LED chips,packaged LEDs, and is bestknown for its high-powerLuxeon light sources.

It is this high-power

segment for lightingapplications that Philips isprimarily interested in. “Thisextends our involvementacross the LED valuechain,” said GerardKleisterlee, the presidentand CEO of Philips. “[Wenow] have the full valuechain under our control.”

Theo van Deursen, theCEO of Philips Lighting, said that acquiring Lumiledswas of “huge strategicimportance” to the Dutchcompany, and he extolledthe virtues of LED lightingfor tempting shoppers andin medical applications.

But it is the general

illumination market that iscritical for Philips. “We seethis as a long-term growthmarket and we are going toinvest in innovation,” saidKleisterlee.

Lumileds’ history is rootedin Hewlett-Packard (HP),where it began life as HP’soptoelectronics division.That division became part ofAgilent when HP split intotwo businesses in 1999.

Now headquartered inSan Jose, CA, Lumiledsemploys 1760 peopleglobally. Company salesgrew 28% in the fiscal yearending July 2005 to reach$324 million, says Philips.

Philips takes control of Lumileds

Lumileds is well known for its AlInGaP-based red andorange HB-LEDs. Philips aims to capitalize on consumerapplications of the technology, such as photonic textiles.

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HEADLINE NEWS compoundsemiconductor.net

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 20056

IBM and Infineon look totopple GaAs with SiGeSilicon chip giants IBM and Infineon Tech-nologies have targeted wireless applicationsthat are traditionally served by GaAs tech-nology with new processes based on SiGe.

IBM has revealed a fourth-generation SiGebipolar CMOS (BiCMOS) foundry process,which it says offers twice the performance ofits previous incarnation.

And Infineon has unveiled its new SiGe:Ctechnology, which it says yields high-gain, low-noise HBTs for high-frequency applications.

Both companies have identified applicationsin wireless LAN and ultra-wideband commu-nications as key markets for the new processes.IBM has also highlighted an opportunity inshort- and long-range automotive radar.

“The fourth generation of SiGe will con-tinue to enable wireless connectivity on an increasingly global scale,” said BernieMeyerson, IBM’s chief technologist for itssystems and technology group.

IBM’s latest process, called 8HP, employsan advanced lithography stage. Devices aremanufactured using 130 nm technology. Thisallows an emitter width of only 120nm, which

gives the 8HP chips an ft of 200 GHz. A low-cost variation of the technology, 8WL, oper-ates with an ft of 100 GHz.

Infineon is focusing on frequencies of10GHz and above. The key to its process tech-nology is a very low base resistance, whichproduces transistors with what it claims to bethe industry’s lowest noise figures for silicondiscretes. The BFP470 HBT series of devicesalso features a new method of reducing para-sitic ground inductance that improves gain athigh frequencies.

Sir, Your article “Foundry model could be keyto InP industry future” (August p17) pointsout that the OIDA is looking for a viablefoundry model and it seems to be willing toput a lot of resources into finding a solution.If companies placed a high emphasis onCAD/CAM standards they could useexisting technology and simply provide afactory interface where the processes andmodels are licensed as IP. This creates tworecurring revenue streams at very little cost.The key (from my own frustrations) is tokeep as few engineers involved as possible.

A small unit of about one or twotechnicians, a database administrator, aportal developer and a sales managercould create a customer-driven designflow. Simply put, it takes longer to createan engineer than to create a process. Ahighly promoted simple company interfacemakes the factory more accessible to awider group of design houses. From there,

the OIDA could put resources behind newproduct development and promoting small,“fabless” design houses.

The technicians would have to be veryknowledgeable with the recommended usesof design and simulation software. Theirrole would be to make the engineers/designers twice as productive. They wouldalso benefit their company by providingfree technical support to customers, andthis support helps to build a foundation ofstandards within the industry. A company’sreputation would be built on qualityproducts, short cycle time and high-profiletechnology “evangelists”. The better thetechnicians, the better the company image.

I’d like to be one of the technicians myself.Bill Thayer, Dallas, Texas

We welcome feedback on any of thearticles published in CompoundSemiconductor. To have your say, e-mailcomments to: michael.hatcher@iop.org.

Letters

Infineon hopes that its BFP740 series ofSiGe:C bipolar transistors will displaceGaAs devices in wireless applications.

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GAAS & WIRELESS NEWS compoundsemiconductor.net

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 2005 7

3G phones present opportunity forrivals to gain on GaAs market leaders RF Micro Devices (RFMD) and SkyworksSolutions are pulling away from rival com-panies in the GaAs device market, accord-ing to a recent report.

Amarket review by Strategy Analytics sug-gests that the two front-runners each have amarket share of around 28%, with fellow USchip manufacturer TriQuint providing themain competition.

Despite the strong growth of the cell-phone handset market in 2004, this translatedinto only modest growth at the GaAs devicelevel. Overall, the GaAs market was worthsome $2.4 billion in 2004, compared with

$2.2 billion in 2002 and $2.3 billion in 2003.However, as Strategy Analytics’GaAs ana-

lyst Asif Anwar noted, the overall flatness ofthe sector masks some big fluctuations in thesale of different types of component.

For example, the market in GaAs MMICsgrew by around 13% on the back of robustcell-phone sales, whereas the digital GaAsdevice market is now virtually non-existent.Sales of discrete GaAs devices also fell awayin 2004, said Anwar.

In 2005 there may be a chance for second-tier GaAs MMIC vendors to take share fromthe two market leaders, as consumers in mature

cell-phone markets make the switch to third-generation services.

“It is going to be a real struggle for othersuppliers to catch up with [Skyworks andRFMD] in 2005, but opportunities movingahead could still shake up GaAs device mar-ket share positioning,” said Anwar.

According to the analyst, Skyworks man-aged to close the gap on RFMD in 2004 thanksto success in the Asia-Pacific zone, where itbundled sales of power amplifiers with otherhandset components.

Anwar added that Skyworks has done wellin the wireless LAN sector.

GigaBeam uses InP for 10Gb/s wireless

High-speed wireless communications providerGigaBeam Corporation has acquired certainexclusive rights to use Vitesse’s InP technol-ogy in its high-performance RF modules.

“The Vitesse technology and know-howbeing obtained under this new agreement willbe incorporated into our next-generation10 Gb/s products,” said GigaBeam’s CEO,Lou Slaughter.

The Herndon, VA, company is developing10 Gb/s wireless products that conform to the10Gig E and OC192 protocols. These prod-ucts, which GigaBeam plans to launch in2006, will replace its WiFiber 2 and WiFiberGSeries modules that are based on either GaAsor silicon and operate at 1 Gb/s.

GigaBeam’s WiFiber products employ the71–76 GHz and 81–86 GHz radio bands,

which are part of the frequency spectrum thatthe US Federal Communications Commissionhas authorized for wireless point-to-pointcommercial use.

According to the company, the speed andreliability associated with its wireless tech-nology is comparable to that delivered withterrestrial fiber, but it is much cheaper andquicker to deploy.

GigaBeam has also teamed up with US-based Epsilon Lambda Electronics to designand support a millimeter-wave communica-tion system for the US Navy. This system willinitially provide communication within ships.

“This initiative further underscores theimportance of millimeter-wave technology inadvancing military and government commu-nications,” said Slaughter.

RF chip maker Anadigics has been grantedfive US patents that relate to the design anddevelopment of radio-frequency ICs.

The US-based company says that thesepatents strengthen its technological advan-tages across its wireless and broadband prod-uct families.

Patent 6,806,767 gives details of a load-switching circuit for linear power amplifier(PA) applications that improves efficiency atdifferent output power modes. The greaterefficiencies are produced by adjusting the out-put load according to the power requirements,which results in dynamic mode switching,says Anadigics.

A method for producing a compact wire-less PA that delivers a higher level of per-formance through a novel circuit layout isdescribed in patent 6,856,004. The amplifierconsists of transistors on a substrate with a viahole, designed in a way that reduces thedevice’s size and improves its performance.

Patent 6,853,526 describes a method forprotecting voltage transients in cable-TV lineamplifier ICs without distorting signals,modulating the power lines or damaging sen-sitive electronic components.

The other two patents, 6,842,075 and6,882,227, describe modifications to the biascircuitry that either enable ICs to operate atlower voltages, thereby consuming lesspower, or improve the linearity of wirelesslocal-area-network PAs.

Patents strengthenAnadigics’ IC design

GigaBeam will design a millimeter-wave communication system for US Navy vessels.

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GAAS & WIRELESS NEWS compoundsemiconductor.net

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 20058

Hittite Microwave shareslaunched on the NASDAQFabless RFIC designer Hittite Microwave hascompleted on its initial public offering (IPO)of common stock at $17 per share.

The company’s shares, which use the sym-bol “HITT”, started trading on the NASDAQon 22 July. The Chelmsford, MA, companyoffered 2.7 million shares for sale, whilestockholders were offered 1.8 million shares.An additional 675,000 shares were to beoffered if the IPO was oversubscribed.

Hittite designs and develops ICs, modulesand subsystems that use a range of GaAs andsilicon-based semiconductor processes.

Its chips are manufactured at severalfoundries, including Global CommunicationsSemiconductors, TriQuint Semiconductor andM/A-COM in the US, United MonolithicSemiconductors in Europe, and Taiwan-based

WIN Semiconductor.Hittite will not use the proceeds from the

IPO to build a wafer fab. “We will continue tofocus on investing in our core design andengineering competencies, while outsourcingthe capital-intensive requirements of semi-conductor fabrication,” said the company.

According to its prospectus, Hittite’s rev-enue has increased sequentially over the past13 years, during which time it has remainedconsistently profitable.

In the second fiscal quarter of this year,Hittite posted revenue of $18.9 million at agross margin of 66%, and recorded a net profitof $4.2million – equivalent to $0.16 per share.

The company expects third-quarter revenueto be between $19.5million and $20.5million,and profit to be at least $4.2 million.

Filtronic ramps GaAs output to meet order

Kopin’s HBT business remains steady

Filtronic, the wireless subsystem supplier thathas its own GaAs fabrication facility inNewton Aycliffe, UK, says that it has rampedup to round-the-clock, seven-day-week waferproduction for the first time.

The company has recently taken on staffand upgraded its facilities to accommodatethe demand for GaAs PHEMT switches fromUS company RF Micro Devices (RFMD).

“The semiconductor foundry at NewtonAycliffe has now established itself as a lead-ing source for 6 inch GaAs wafers using thePHEMT process,” said Filtronic’s GroupCEO, John Roulston.

Filtronic began supplying wafers to RFMDin volume in April. The PHEMT switches areused in the company’s front-end modules formobile handsets.

Suppliers of power amplifiers and front-endmodules have identified the antenna switch

as a key area for expanding the GaAs contentin cell phones. And with the mobile marketexpanding faster this year than was originallyexpected, the prospects for Filtronic look good.

In the company’s financial year that endedon May 31, its Integrated Products group,which includes the PHEMT switch business,saw revenue increase by 26%.

Although the division is still making a heftyoperating loss, it should get close to break-even with a full year of wafer supplies toRFMD. Roulston also hopes to attract othervolume customers. “The volume switch mar-ket, which has taken longer than forecast tomature, is showing strength,” he said.

Overall, Filtronic posted a pre-tax profitof £5.5 million ($9.7 million) on sales of£262.9 million in the fiscal year 2005, com-pared with a loss of £0.9 million on sales of£245.1 million last year.

HBT supplier Kopin posted a net profit of$1.8 million in the quarter ended June 25,despite a slight dip in the sales of HBT wafers.

Revenue from the company’s III-V busi-ness was $9 million, down from $10.4 millionone year ago and $9.4 million sequentially.

Thanks to the spin-out of its LED manu-facturing operation to China and Taiwan,

which was announced this February, Kopin,of Taunton, MA, has reduced its costs mas-sively compared with the same period last year.

This, coupled with strong sales of its micro-display products, has seen the company turnthe loss it posted in the same quarter last yearinto a profit – despite a slight drop in overallsales to $20.5 million.

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LED NEWS compoundsemiconductor.net

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 2005 11

Epistar and UEC form Taiwanese giantTwo of Taiwan’s leading LED manufacturers,Epistar and United Epitaxy Company (UEC),are set to merge at the end of this year.

The new company, to be called Epistar, willbe considerably larger than its rivals in theTaiwan LED industry in terms of operationand production scale. Epistar is already aleader in the high-luminance blue LED seg-ment with its patented indium–tin oxide tech-nology, and UEC has been Taiwan’s largest

supplier of red-orange-yellow AlGaInPLEDs.Epistar’s president, B J Lee, told Com-

pound Semiconductor that the new companywill be able to deliver more than one billionAlGaInP chips per month. This, he said,would make it the largest AlGaInPchip manu-facturer in the world. On the InGaN side,capacity will be 200 million chips per month,making it Taiwan’s largest supplier.

Lee added that the combined resources

would still not be sufficient to meet its expan-sion plans for AlGaInP chip manufacturing.As a result, he does not expect any cuts in whatwill become a 1500-strong workforce.

The merger will take effect on December30, 2005, when every 2.24 shares in UEC willbe swapped for one Epistar share. After that,Epistar expects its annual revenue to reachNT$12 billion ($377 million), from a com-bined NT$5.74 billion last year.

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Market analyst company iSuppli is expectinggrowth in the LED lamp and chip market toslow significantly this year.

It says that the overall market will grow11% this year to reach around $5.2 billion.Growth of the HB-LED segment in particu-lar, which iSuppli believes will be impactedby increasing competition and falling aver-age prices, will slow to around 10% after threeconsecutive years of much stronger growth.

The analyst’s report suggests that the uptakeof HB-LEDs in new areas, such as large-screenLCD backlighting and automotive applica-tions, will be slower than some people expect.

But better things are expected in the ultra-high-brightness sector, which is defined byiSuppli as LEDs that have a luminous flux ofmore than 20 lumens. Valued at only $94 mil-lion in 2004, this market is expected to expandrapidly and be worth $2.32 billion in 2010.

Cree has capped another successful year withrecord sales of $98.9 million in its fourth fis-cal quarter. The figure, which represents 9%year-on-year growth, brought total sales forfiscal 2005 to $389 million. This is a hugeincrease over the 2004 figure of $307 million.

With improving profit margins, the LEDand RF device maker also saw its net incomeshoot up 57% to $91.1 million in the year end-ing June 26.

“On top of finishing the year with our bestquarter ever, recent sales data suggests thatCree’s revenue grew faster than our top com-petitors in both Japan and Taiwan during theyear,” said Chuck Swoboda, Cree’s CEO.

The upward trend is set to continue, with85% of Cree’s sales target for the current quar-ter already booked and the company expect-ing to deliver revenue of between $101millionand $104 million.

Despite these positive predictions inves-tors appeared to be disappointed with the out-look, and Cree’s share price had sunk byalmost 10% when trading re-opened after itsearnings report. Since then, the company’sstock has recovered some of that lost groundand has traded at around $25.

Meanwhile, Cynthia Merrell, the com-pany’s chief financial officer, is to quit Creeafter nearly nine years at the company. Merrellwill remain until a successor takes office.

The Durham, NC, chip manufacturer hasalso won more funding from the US militaryto develop SiC-based MMICs for RF appli-cations. A “technology investment agree-ment” with the US Air Force valued at$19.7 million will help Cree to develop SiCMMICs for military radar and commercialapplications. The project should be completedby March 2010.

iSuppli predicts slowdown in HB-LEDs Record-busting Creeinks $20m USAF deal

OPTO NEWS compoundsemiconductor.net

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 2005

Chip giant Vishay to buyCyOptics’ Israel facilityVishay Intertechnology, a Fortune 1000 com-pany and one of the world’s largest semicon-ductor manufacturers, is set to develop InPoptoelectronic devices with the acquisition ofa wafer fabrication facility built by CyOptics.

CyOptics built the facility, in Yokneam,Israel, before it acquired TriQuint’s fab atBreinigsville, PA. InP- and GaAs-based opto-electronic devices have been developed andmass-produced at the facility in Israel.

Vishay Israel says that it has signed a letterof intent to buy the site, subject to the com-pletion of due diligence, as well as approvalfrom the Israeli authorities.

The acquisition of the fab appears to be agood deal for the company, judging by itscomment that the purchase price “would notbe material to Vishay”.

Felix Zandman, the chief technical and

business development officer at Vishay, said:“With its state-of-the-art wafer fab, theCyOptics Israel design team will provide the technological strength to place our exist-ing optoelectronics division at the forefrontof the GaAs and InP technologies.”

“The fab can be adapted rapidly to the needsof Vishay and is part of the ongoing effort toadvance the company for future markets,” headded. Vishay says that it will develop newproducts at the site.

Since CyOptics acquired the TriQuint opto-electronics division, it has been consolidatingthe production of InP-based lasers and detec-tors at the Breinigsville site.

CyOptics’ president, Ed Coringrato, said:“We built a world-class fab in Israel. We aredelighted that it will remain a strong asset forthe Israel economy.”

Emcore boosted by $8m solar panel order

Princeton Lightwave targets eye-safe laser

Emcore is to make solar panels for a majorsatellite manufacturer under a contract valuedat $8 million. The contract win means thatEmcore will resume production at its solarpanel facility in City of Industry, CA, whichhad been earmarked for closure this year. (SeeCompound Semiconductor May p16.)

Emcore still plans to close the plant, albeitat a later date than expected, probably in 2007.

The satellite manufacturer needs a batch ofsolar panels for a new communications pay-load, which one analyst believes could be partof a military program. The satellite will be

launched into a geosynchronous orbit with thesolar panels, which are expected to ship in late2006. Emcore says that several more solarpanels may be needed in 2007.

The cost to Emcore of closing its City ofIndustry plant will be reduced as a result ofthe new business, and will be spread over alonger period.

The photovoltaic sector constitutes 27.6%of Emcore’s business. This latest order willadd momentum to the company’s growingtop-line revenue and should be reflected in animproved gross margin.

Princeton Lightwave (PLI) has been awardedsecond-year funding from the US Departmentof Energy (DoE) to develop a 1 kW InP-pumped Er:YAG solid-state laser.

The eye-safe laser will be developed in con-junction with the Army Research Laboratorythrough funding awarded by the DoE’s HighEnergy Laser Joint Technology Office.

PLI’s efforts will contribute to the DoE’sprogram to develop stacks of InP pump laserarrays operating at very high powers.

The InP pump lasers are designed to oper-ate at wavelengths near the emission wave-length of the Er:YAG gain medium, because

this approach greatly reduces the undesirableheating of the gain medium.

“In addition to alleviating active mediaoverheating, the use of InP-based pumpsources avoids a critical problem inherent toGaAs diode lasers associated with the degra-dation of the diode lasers’mirror facets,” saidPLI chief scientist Dimitri Garbuzov. “Thephoton flux for InP pump lasers can be sev-eral times larger than that of traditional, GaAs-based pumps at comparable device lifetimes.”

PLI has already demonstrated diode-pumped Er:YAG lasers with 100 W outputemitting at 1.65 µm.

13COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 2005

OPTO NEWScompoundsemiconductor.net

Jenoptik’s laser diodebar breaks 400W barrierBy Oliver GraydonJenoptik Laserdiode, the German manufac-turer of semiconductor lasers, has fabricateda 1 cm laser diode bar that emits a record-breaking 454 W of continuous-wave infrared(940 nm) light. The result eclipses the previ-ous records of 364 W and 320 W that werereported last year by nLight and Bookham.

Jenoptik’s result was achieved with a barmeasuring 1 cm × 2 mm that was made at itsnew semiconductor fabrication plant, JenoptikDiode Lab, in Berlin.

“It was just a plain semiconductor bar that we use in production, nothing special,”explained Detlev Wolff from Jenoptik Laser-diode. “Compared to the regular diode prod-uct, we simply changed the packaging to carrythe larger current.”

The water-cooled device emitted the record-breaking power when driven at a whopping580 A. Despite this impracticality, the resultshows that Jenoptik’s semiconductor materialis capable of being driven at high outputpowers without suffering catastrophic opticaldamage (COD) to its facets.

“The question for us is what is the weakpoint of a diode laser. This result shows thatit is not the facet,” said Wolff. “What we seeis that the device is thermally limited ratherthan suffering from COD. This means that itis not the semiconductor bar that is limitingthe next level in performance but it’s the pack-aging and heat-sinking.”

This latest result means that there is nowan even larger gap between the performanceof laboratory demonstrations and commercialdevices. The highest power bars on the mar-ket now deliver around 100–120 W continu-ous wave, and Wolff says this figure isunlikely to rise while manufacturers concen-trate on improving the lifetime of devicesrather than the output power.

Oliver Graydon is editor of Optics.org and Opto &Laser Europe magazine.

High-efficiency laser manufacturer Alfalighthas won $5.9 million under two separate pro-grams funded by the US military, as well asan extra $7 million in venture funding.

The Defense Advanced Research ProjectsAgency (DARPA) has provided Alfalight with$1.4 million for the second part of its super-high-efficiency diodes (SHEDS) program.

The Wisconsin-based company recentlydemonstrated a laser bar emitting 55 W at71% efficiency. This result has since beenverified by the National Institute of Standardsand Technology.

Now DARPAis setting an even stiffer tar-get. The aim for Alfalight is to make a stackedarray of lasers that produces 480 W with a

power conversion efficiency of 80%.Although part of that improvement can be

made by further reducing optical and elec-trical loss mechanisms, Alfalight says that itwill also look to change the fundamentalstructure of the lasers, using quantum dots andimproved epitaxy methods.

The company has won a further $4.5 mil-lion through another military contract, thistime with the Army Research Laboratory.

The goal of this 12-month program is todemonstrate a multimode laser diode with anoutput of 1 kW. Alfalight’s latest fundinground was supported by all of its major pre-vious investors. The cash will be used toexpand product lines.

Alfalight bags equity and innovation funds

Jenoptik’s laser diode bar emits an outputpower that is about four times greater thanthat of today’s commercial devices.

JEN

OP

TIK

http://www.axt.com/

Optical component manufacturers ASIP andT-Networks of the US have merged to form anew company, Apogee Photonics.

Apogee has also secured $9.7million in newfunding. This includes contributions from exist-ing ASIP and T-Network investors BlueRunVentures, Atlas Ventures, Finaventures, IntelCapital, Redpoint Ventures and TL Ventures.

The newly formed company will be able toaddress all segments of the 10Gb/s fiber-opticmarket, from very short-reach datacom linksto high-performance, dense wavelength divi-sion multiplexing transport networks.

Mike Decelle, the former CEO of ASIP,has been appointed CEO of Apogee.

Decelle says that the merger will improveoperating efficiencies, because the productsdeveloped can be manufactured at a single fab.Chips will be manufactured at T-Networks’fab in Allentown, PA, and Apogee will main-tain a presence at ASIP’s headquarters in New

Jersey. The merger will benefit customers,says Decelle, because they will be able to workwith a supplier of a broader range of products.

The formation of Apogee has led to staffcuts at the merging companies.

Commenting on the merger, Tom Housken,the director of photonics research at StrategiesUnlimited, said: “Both ASIPand T-Networkshave innovative technologies and strengthsthat will allow Apogee to expand its productand customer base and provide solutions thatintegrate the source, modulator and amplifier.”

InP chip maker Bookham is planning to raiseup to $35 million through public offerings ofits stock over the next two years.

The company announced its intention tofile a registration statement with the Securitiesand Exchange Commission to that effect whenit revealed its fiscal 2005 financial results.

The latest Bookham sales figures revealeda 22% sequential increase in revenue to$61 million, and CEO Giorgio Anania saidthat he saw strong signs of market growth.

Despite the largely positive outlook, Book-ham is losing money fast, with cash and cashequivalents falling by $92million over the lastyear. The company posted a net loss of $18mil-lion – a figure that excluded an additional$21 million in charges relating to severancepayments and its acquisition of New Focus.

Bookham has recently reduced costs bymoving much of its test and assembly oper-ation from Paignton in the UK to Shenzhen,China. It has also substantially cut spendingon research and development: to $9.8 millionin the latest quarter, from $14.4 million in theequivalent period last year.

As a result of cost-cutting and the increasedsales, Bookham is now operating at a grossmargin of 19%. This is a big improvement onthe situation one year ago, when the companyachieved a gross loss of 11%.

But, as company CFO Steve Abely pointed

out in a conference call to discuss the figures,Bookham now needs to raise more money.

Apart from the intended public stock offer-ings, Bookham reckons on raising up to$25 million through asset sales. This willinclude the sell-off of land and buildings overthe next three months, as well as other assetsthat Abely declined to identify.

Several days after the conference call, thecompany announced that it has improved itscash flow through a tax break that frees upnearly $12 million.

Bookham received £4.2 million ($7.5 mil-lion) on August 10 under the terms of the deal,and will have access to a further £1 million onOctober 14; £1 million on July 14, 2006; and£0.43 million on July 16, 2007.

The deal involves Deutsche Bank; LondonIndustrial Leasing, which is a subsidiary ofthe German financier; and a company calledCreekside that deals in aircraft subleases.

Bookham has agreed to purchase all of theissued share capital of Creekside, which willnow operate as its subsidiary. As a result,Bookham stands to receive payments that aredue for the aircraft Creekside leases.

Creekside is based in the UK, althoughBookham won’t specify the exact location.This means that Bookham can transfer taxlosses to its advantage, making an extra£6.63 million available in cash.

FIBER NEWS compoundsemiconductor.net

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 2005 15

Bookham outlines plan toraise cash as sales grow

T-Networks andASIP merge to formApogee Photonics

Two fiber-optic component vendors havetopped up their latest venture financing roundsas the optical networking sector continues toshow signs of a recovery.

Picolight, of Louisville, CO, which spe-cializes in 1310 nm VCSELs, has added$14.5million through a combination of equityinvestment and debt finance.

Investor Growth Capital (IGC), a newinvestor in the company, provided $7 million,and Albert Kim from IGC will now join theboard of Picolight.

ORIX Venture Finance has provided a debtfacility worth an additional $7.5 million.

Picolight says that it will use the moneyto scale up its manufacturing process. It alsoplans to extend its VCSELproduct capabilityfrom 4 Gb/s to 10 Gb/s.

According to the company, revenue andorders have doubled during the past year asthe fiber-optic sector has finally begun toregain momentum.

Also looking to scale up production isAlphion, a component vendor that specializesin InP integration.

Alphion, of Princeton, NJ, has secured anextra $1.5 million, bringing its third-roundequity investment to $12.1 million and totalfunding so far to $44.1 million.

The company’s flagship QLight products,launched in February 2004, are based on mono-lithic integration on InP chips and advancedpackaging technologies. The new funding isexpected to help the company to expand itsproduct range, which now includes amplifiers,switches and transponders.

Apogee Photonics’ modulated laser sourceoperates at 1.55µm. The newly formedcompany’s products will cover all segmentsof the 10Gb/s fiber-optic market.

Fiber component makers secure funding

WIDE BANDGAP NEWS

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 200516

SiC modules set to cutsize of ship transformersSilicon carbide (SiC) chips will be the keycomponent in a new generation of high-powerelectronic modules that promise to reduce theweight and volume of transformers usedonboard US Navy ships.

The modules will be developed by NorthropGrumman Electronic Systems (NGES) underan $8.9million contract awarded by the Officeof Naval Research. The award also forms partof the Defense Advanced Research ProjectsAgency’s phase-two effort on wide-bandgaphigh-power switches.

NGES will construct high-frequency,power electronic modules using SiC chipsdeveloped and fabricated at its own facili-ties in Baltimore.

Devices under development include SiCMOSFETs, insulated gate bipolar transistorsand PiN diodes. Powerex, a program partnerof NGES, will assemble these devices to make

10 kV, 100 A half-bridge modules.Other team members include GeneSiC and

a series of US universities, and Northrop’sNewport News sector will develop the solid-state power substation.

Modules made with the wide-bandgapmaterial will form a major part of the trans-formers that distribute power on naval vessels.

The US Navy plans to use the technologyon its new CVN-78 aircraft carrier. Construc-tion is due to begin in 2007, and the carrier isslated to be placed in commission in 2014.

Steve McCoy, the director of advancedtechnology programs at NGES, said that USNavy ships featuring the technology wouldbenefit from increased space and weight thatcould be used for extra sensors and weapons.

The use of SiC-based modules is expectedto save 170 tons in weight and 290 m3 in spaceonboard the ships.

TDI unveils InN-on-sapphire templates

Raytheon wins $10m GaN radar contract

Technologies and Devices International (TDI),a US-based manufacturer of template sub-strates, has produced InN epitaxial layers andstructures using its hydride vapor phase epi-taxial (HVPE) technology.

The 2 inch-diameter InN-on-sapphire tem-plates and InN/GaN heterostructures wereshown at the 6th International Conference onNitride Semiconductors in Bremen, Germany.

“This result is an important step towardsHVPE technology for InN-containing materi-als and devices, including high brightness blue,ultraviolet and white LEDs,” said AlexanderSyrkin, TDI’s crystal growth specialist.

TDI has previously produced GaN-baseddevices with its HVPE technology (see Com-pound Semiconductor December 2004 p15).

The latest process, developed in collabor-ation with the Army Research Laboratory andTexas Technical University, enables the com-pany to deposit either InN epitaxial layers or

3D nanostructures in a controllable manner.TDI has also launched templates that con-

sist of a 10–18 µm-thick single crystal AlNfilm deposited on a conductive SiC substrate.

The low-defect AlN-on-SiC substrates areclaimed to offer a good lattice and thermalmatch to GaN-based devices, and to combinethe thermal conductivity of SiC with the highintrinsic electrical resistivity of AlN.

According to the Silver Spring, MD, com-pany, the templates are suitable for ultra-high-power AlGaN/GaN HEMTs because the AlNlayer is sufficiently thick to provide reliableinsulation and low current leakage.

“Proprietary stress-control technologydeveloped at TDI allows us to put in produc-tion these new substrate materials, which willallow the nitride community to speed up devel-opment and commercialization of advancednitride semiconductor devices,” said VladimirDmitriev, TDI’s president and CEO.

Raytheon has been granted a $10 million con-tract to develop and demonstrate a GaN-basedprototype module for use in radar systems.

The integrated multichannel module willreceive and transmit signals using 28 V GaN

power amplifiers and efficient power supplies.The development of the module, which

should be completed by August 2008, will beshared between the company’s Tewksburyand Andover sites in Massachusetts.

Thomas SwanScientific Equipment

Thomas Swan Scientific Equipment LtdBuckingway Business ParkSwaveseyCambridge CB4 5FQ UK

t +44 (0)1223 519444f +44 (0)1223 519888e sales@thomasswan.co.ukwww.thomasswan.co.uk

A member of the AIXTRON group of companies

• The Next Generation of an IndustryStandard: Epison 4 OM GasConcentration Analyser

• Improved accuracy, extended to lower concentration, better signal to noise ratio

• Optimised design – integrated ultrasonic cell and control unit

• DeviceNet and Profibus fieldbuscommunications for system integration

17

COVER STORY

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 2005

1995Blue is the color

March ● Nichia transfers itsblue LED production line toa new factory ● Nokia andRFMD agree a secret deal touse GaAs HBTs in theFinnish company’s cell

phones ● Spectra Diode Labs (SDL) raises$35 million in its IPO.April ● Anadigics raises $24 million in itsIPO, and plans to switch from 3-inch to4-inch GaAs production.July ● The premier issue of CompoundSemiconductor focuses on blue LED andlaser emitters ● Near completion of asupercomputer that would have featuredmore than 100 different GaAs circuits, Crayfiles for bankruptcy – leaving behind a4-inch GaAs fab line ● Nichia increasescapacity to ramp blue LED production to10 million devices per month.September ● Nichia makes a green LEDsaid to be 60 times brighter thanconventional devices ● Cree plans chipmanufacturing expansion to meet expecteddemand for its new blue LEDs, and signs athree-year distribution deal with SumitomoCorporation ● Four MBE-grownGaAs/AlGaAs samples are fabricated onboard the Wake Shield Facility, launched by

the Space Shuttle Endeavor ● MatsushitaElectric develops GaInP/AlInGaP-basedred laser for DVD applications and plans tobegin volume production in early 1996● Fujitsu tops a survey of the major GaAsIC manufacturers with sales of nearly$100 million.November ● Panasonic and Toyoda Goseiteam up to make 1 million GaN-on-sapphireblue LEDs per month ● M/A-COM buysCray’s 4-inch GaAs line and plans to make2 million GaAs ICs per month.December ● Nichia team led by ShujiNakamura produces a GaN-basedsemiconductor laser operating at 417 nm.

1996Spaced

January ● Shipments ofGaAs substrates surge 42%in Japan on the back ofdemand for mobilecommunicationsapplications ● TriQuint

enters the market for RF power amplifiers● AXT begins building a 50,000 ft2 facilityto produce GaAs substrates in a $20 million,five-year investment ● Aixtron ships its200th deposition system ● Agilentdevelops a GaAs-HBT process.March ● TRW and RFMD reveal plans to

produce GaAs HBTs in volume ● Hewlett-Packard is rated the top-ranking compoundsemiconductor producer in 1995, withrevenue of $675 million. Japanese firmsNEC, Sharp, Toshiba, Matsushita, Rohmand Fujitsu take the next six positions, andthe overall III-V market is estimated to beworth $3.7 billion ● Sony says it will spend$100 million on a new III-V deviceprocessing line for CD and DVD lasers.May ● Anadigics plans to lease a 70,000 ft2

facility for GaAs IC production.June ● Nichia constructs a factory todouble blue LED production.July ● Anadigics says that it will invest$35 million to construct a 10,000 ft2

cleanroom for GaAs IC production on4-inch wafers ● Westinghouse makes high-power SiC transistors for digital televisiontransmitters, in what is thought to be thefirst commercial application of suchtechnology ● United MonolithicSemiconductors is revealed as the jointventure between Thomson-CSF andDaimler-Benz, and becomes the sixth GaAsfab located in Europe ● Picogiga completesIPO on France’s Nouveau Marche.September ● RFMD says that it will buildthe world’s largest GaAs fab to manufactureHBTs ● Hewlett-Packard moves awayfrom the traditional shape of LEDs with a

Celebrating a decade of compound semiconductor coverage

Compound Semiconductor magazine is 10 years old. And, just like most of the rest of the industry, it has been through a few ups and downs during that time. Here, we take a look back at some of the

highlights – and lowlights – that have shaped the industry over the past decade.

RETROSPECTIVE: 1995–2005

10YEARS

compoundsemiconductor.net

COVER STORY compoundsemiconductor.net

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 200518

flip-chip approach ● Vitesse says that itsColorado Springs 6-inch GaAs facility willbe up and running in late 1998.November ● In anticipation of DVDuptake, Sharp reveals plans to double laserproduction to 10 million units per month● A research group at Toshiba becomes thethird to make a GaN-based laser diode,using a facet-cleaving process ● Nichiareadies the world’s first GaN-based whiteLED lamps for volume production● Motorola’s plan to launch Iridium, a

66-satellite communications network,boosts III-V device makers. Each satelliteis set to incorporate 24 m2 of compoundsemiconductor material for solar cells,while GaAs ICs will be used in thewireless links using the Ka-band. ButIridium proves expensive both to build andfor subscribers. Motorola later axes theservice, although it is saved frombankruptcy by venture capitalists and $72million from the Pentagon. ● Coherentacquires MBE wafer specialist Tutcore ofFinland for aluminum-free laserproduction.

1997The HBT cometh

January ● ShujiNakamura’s announcementof the first continuous-wave405 nm nitride laser tooperate at room temperaturecaps a remarkable year in

GaN optoelectronics ● Agilent developsfirst VCSELs for gigabit-Ethernettransceivers.February ● Anadigics nets around$55 million in a public offering of its stocks.March ● Emcore completes $22.5 millionIPO ● Rockwell’s far-reaching MOCVDpatent, which had been licensed to morethan 40 III-V companies worldwide, isruled invalid by a US Federal Court afterSDL argues successfully that several of itskey claims are just – well –obvious ● Uniphase acquires IBM’s 980 nmpump-laser fab in Zurich, Switzerland, for$45 million in cash – plus a further$27 million in licenses.April ● Anadigics ships millionth GaAs ICfor Qualcomm CDMA PCS handsets● Kopin triples GaAs epiwafer capacitywith two Aixtron AIX 2400 systems.June ● Rockwell ramps HBT productionto 700,000 units per month on the back ofdemand from cell-phone handset makers

Qualcomm, Samsung and Lucky Goldstar(now LG) ● RFMD’s IPO receives a warmwelcome on Wall Street.July ● Cree makes the first SiC-based laser– a pulsed device emitting at 403 nm.September ● Hewlett-Packard enters theblue LED market with InGaN-on-sapphire475 nm devices, and forecasts a major rampin capacity ● Cree says that it will makefake diamonds based on SiC under a supplydeal to C3, a company led by Eric and JeffHunter, brothers of Cree CEO Neal Hunter.October ● Sharp increases diode laserproduction to 6 million units permonth ● After initial demonstration at thecompany’s laboratories in July, details ofNichia’s blue laser with a 10,000 h lifetimeare revealed to the wider world at theInternational Conference on NitrideSemiconductors in Japan. Nichia plans tosample blue lasers by the end of 1998.November ● Aixtron goes public on theFrankfurt stock exchange, with its IPOoversubscribed by more than 30 times.December ● TriQuint moves alloperations to Oregon, including a 16,000 ft2

wafer fab.

1998Year of the nitrides

January ● TriQuint buysRaytheon TI Systems’ GaAsMMIC business, whichbecomes TriQuint’s Texasoperation ● HBTproduction begins at

RFMD’s GaAs fab in Greensboro, NC, andthe company reveals details of a major dealto supply Nokia’s new series of GSM

phones with power amplifiers ● Watkins-Johnson (now WJ Communications) plansto acquire Samsung MicrowaveSemiconductor, including a 3-inch and4-inch GaAs processing line.February ● 9000 people attend the OpticalFiber Communications conference (OFC)in San Jose, CA, as healthy growth ispredicted for the fiber-optic sector.March ● Months ahead of schedule,Vitesse ships the first chips from the world’sfirst 6-inch GaAs fab in ColoradoSprings ● Hewlett-Packard is still rankedtop of the compound semiconductor pile, asStrategies Unlimited says that the total 1997market for III-V devices was worth $3.9billion ● Shuji Nakamura reveals substrateremoval to be a major factor in successfulmanufacture of blue GaN lasers.April ● Excellence in Communications(EiC) opens Fremont, CA, foundry toproduce HBT-based ICs ● Despite asuccessful 1997, in which it led the poweramplifier market, Anadigics feels the pinchof competition and the Asian financialcrisis. Sales drop by 50%, its share pricecollapses, 15% of the company’s workforceis shed and the opening of a new fab isdelayed by a year ● Softening demand for

RETROSPECTIVE: 1995–2005

IRID

IUM

/NA

SA

Also celebrating 10 years in the compound semiconducthat time, the German company’s workforce has grown share, serving both optoelectronic and microelectronic a new technology center for semiconductor materials a

Space was a strong theme in 1996, withMBE experiments aboard NASA’s WakeShield Facility (inset) and great hopes forMotorola’s Iridium project.

19COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 2005

COVER STORYcompoundsemiconductor.net

GaAs ICs hits the share prices of leadingmanufacturers hard.May ● 13 years after its founding,Anadigics ships its 100 millionth GaAsIC ● Specializing in substrates grown usingthe relatively new vertical gradient freeze(VGF) method, AXT goes public on theNASDAQ ● Uniphase plans a buy-out ofPhilips Optoelectronics, and opens its alaser diode fab in Zurich, turning the SanJose company into a major player in thetelecom laser business.June ● TriQuint establishes a GaAsfoundry business at Hillsboro, OR.July ● Uniroyal Technology Corp (UTC)says it is ready to begin ordering equipmentfor making blue LEDs at its new fab inTampa.August ● Sony is the third company (afterNichia and then Cree) to produce a blueGaN laser with continuous-wave operation.October ● At the first EuropeanMicrowave Week, Siemens reveals plansfor a 6-inch GaAs fab, the first for analogchips.November ● After an investment of$3 billion, Motorola’s Iridium global phoneservice becomes available, with the first callon the network placed by a great-grandson

of Alexander Graham Bell.December ● Hewlett-Packard launches itsfirst HBT-based products, which featureInGaP emitters. The prescalers andDarlington feedback amplifiers are grownusing MOCVD ● With its silicon deviceoperation suffering, Siemens plans to spinoff its semiconductor activity, whichincludes one of the world’s biggest GaAsfabs, into a private company. The newlyspun-off semiconductor operation is laterchristened Infineon Technologies● Anadigics says that it will focus on GaAsPHEMT development in 1999.

1999Gold rush!

January ● RockwellInternational spins out itssemiconductor business asConexant Systems ● 980 nmlaser chips from Uniphaseare deemed reliable enough

to pump amplifiers in submarine opticalnetworks, and the company receives a hugeorder from Lucent Technologies. Uniphasethen merges with JDS Fitel to become JDSUniphase (JDSU) ● Anadigics unveilsplans for a 6-inch GaAs fab in Warren, NJ,to streamline operations and loweroverheads ● Osram Opto Semiconductorsis established by Siemens.March ● SDL and Mitsubishi join JDSU assuppliers of 980 nm submarine lasers● Nokia moves ahead of Motorola as theworld’s top mobile phone supplier ● GaAsfoundry Global CommunicationSemiconductors sets up in Torrance, CA

● North Carolina State Universityresearchers demonstrate a technique knownas pendeo-epitaxy for growing nearlydefect-free GaN ● Raytheon plans a 6-inchGaAs fab set to open late 2000.May ● Nichia says its ongoing patentdispute with Toyoda Gosei over blue LEDsis “developing into an all-out war” ● Anumber of chip, materials and equipmentproducers post record revenue figures.June ● Epiwafer suppliers EpitaxialProducts International and QuantumEpitaxial Designs (QED) merge to formInternational Quantum Epitaxy (IQE)● RFMD officially opens the world’sbiggest MBE facility.July ● PHEMT and MESFET productionbegins at Anadigics’6-inch GaAs fab.August ● RFMD ships 100 millionth PA● With just 15,000 subscribers rather thanthe hoped-for 500,000, satellite phoneservice provider Iridium files forbankruptcy.September ● Hewlett-Packard names itssemiconductor manufacturing spin-offAgilent Technologies, which spawnsSilicon Valley’s biggest IPO ● Lucentplans a $30 million expansion to meetdemand for fiber-optic components ● Chipcapacity build-out continues withFiltronic’s massive new 6-inch GaAs fabin the UK and RFMD’s second HBTfacility ● Laser manufacturers seduceWall Street, with JDS Uniphase and SDLquadrupling in value in just one year.October ● Aixtron acquires MOCVDcompany Thomas Swan ScientificEquipment, and follows with the buy-out of

RETROSPECTIVE: 1995–2005

ctor business is substrate supplier Freiberger. Duringfrom 85 to 230 as it has gathered a 30% overall marketapplications. In early 2005, the company helped found

at the local University of Freiberg.

FR

EIB

ER

GE

R C

OM

PO

UN

D M

ATE

RIA

LS

We asked GeraldStringfellow, distinguishedprofessor of engineering atthe University of Utah, tonominate his favoriteepitaxy-related researchpapers from the lastdecade. Here’s what he saidabout his choices:

● Lateral epitaxy of lowdefect density GaN layersvia OMVPE – R Davis et al.1997 Appl. Phys Lett. 712638.

“This process is the key to

making GaN lasers, thecritical component for next-generation disc players.”

● Extremely large N content(up to 10%) in GaNAs grownby gas-source MBE –Kondow et al. 1996 Journalof Crystal Growth 164 175.

“Making dilute nitridematerials has been themost fascinating problem ofthe last decade. Kondowand his group have madethe greatest contribution tothe developing these

materials, which havealready been used for high-performance lasers.”

● Synthesis of branched‘nanotrees’ by controlledseeding of multiplebranching events –L Samuelson et al. 2004Nature Materials 3 380.

“What impresses meabout Lars Samuelson’swork is the sheer beauty ofbeing able to grow thesewires. It’s very, very prettywork.”

Epitaxy highlights

COVER STORY compoundsemiconductor.net

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 200520

Swedish CVD outfit Epigress.November ● Agilent and Philips Lightinglaunch Lumileds ● Shuji Nakamura leavesNichia, taking up a post at UCSB threemonths later.December ● Alcatel pours $100 millioninto its Nozay manufacturing facility inFrance, and Nortel constructs a 3-inch InPfab in Ottawa, Canada ● Nichia rampsLED capacity to 50 million units permonth ● Spectrolab makes a triple-junction solar cell with world-recordefficiency of 32.3%.

2000Fab-ulous

February ● TriQuintacquires a state-of-the-artfacility in Richardson, TX.May ● TriQuint completesHillsboro, OR, GaAs fab

expansion.July ● SDL and JDSU set up a mergerworth $41 billion ● UK prime ministerTony Blair opens Filtronic’s $35 millionGaAs fab.September ● Hitachi spins out Opnext toproduce chips for fiber optics.November ● Agilent plans 6-inch GaAsfab to make E-mode PHEMTs ● ZhoresAlferov and Herbert Kroemer share one halfof the Nobel Prize for Physics for theirdevelopments in semiconductorheterostructures (IC inventor Jack Kilbyscoops the other half) ● Taiwanese GaAsfoundries proliferate as chip demandskyrockets ● Sony showcases prototypeDVD player based on a blue laser.December ● Nortel Networks reassuresinvestors over its predicted revenue, despiteworries about the wider telecoms market● Lucent’s chip-manufacturing spin-offAgere Systems files for an IPO.

2001Wall Street blues

January ● GaAs ICcompanies suffer a “WallStreet crash” amidovercapacity fears ● ToyodaGosei mass-produces 380 nmGaN LEDs ● WIN

Semiconductor makes Taiwan’s first 6-inchGaAs MMIC wafer.February ● JDSU sells its 980 nm laserfacility in Zurich for $2.5 billion in Nortelstock. Shortly afterwards, Nortel shocks themarket, saying that its 2001 revenue will beonly half of that predicted. Nortel’s shareprice tanks, along with JDSU’s proceedsfrom the Zurich plant sale ● Almostimmediately after merging with SDL, JDSUwarns that there is a “lower level of near-termvisibility” in the fiber-optic sector. However,the company assures worried investors thus:“We do not believe this is a long-term trend.”

RETROSPECTIVE: 1995–2005

Somewhat resembling a stageprofile from the Tour de France,the figures for the GaAs RFdevice and material market fromthe last 10 years show just whata rollercoaster ride this sectorhas endured.

Faced with boom and bust –perceived undercapacityfollowed by gross overcapacity –predicting this business musthave been an analyst’s worstnightmare. But when all is saidand done, in the last 10years theglobal GaAs device market hasgrown from $500 million to $2.5billion at a healthy compoundannual growth rate of 17%.However, today’s market is stillworth far less than the $3.2billionpeak recorded in 2000.

Back in 1995, with the cell-phone handset market in itsearly stages and the telecombubble still a few years away, theGaAs market was dominated bylow-volume applications, suchas military radars andsupercomputers. Then the HBTemerged as a key building blockof the cell-phone as the GaAsdevice market tripled in size

between 1997 and 2000.As well as the burgeoning

cell-phone market, the 2000peak was a result of rapidgrowth in the fiber-opticcommunications industry, withdigital GaAs components usedin laser drivers, transimpedanceamplifiers, mutiplexers anddemultiplexers. Since then,SiGe and silicon technology hasgained an increasing marketshare in both 2.5 Gb/s and10 Gb/s fiber-optic applications,leaving the cellular business asthe primary GaAs market.

An explosion in cell-phonesales globally since 2002 hassustained the market sincethen. This application now

accounts for 52% of the sector’svalue, although revenue hasbeen tempered by a steadydecline in the average sellingprice (ASP) of devices. Thetrend is set to continue, alongwith rising sales of 3G phonesthat have a higher GaAs contentto deliver multi-band operation.

In the same time frame, salesof raw GaAs semi-insulatingsubstrates have mirrored thefluctuations seen in the GaAsdevice market – in terms of thetotal area of material shipped.During 2000 expectations ofcontinuing demand for thefollowing year, combined withfears of a 6-inch wafer shortage,fueled a record 14 million square

inches of GaAs substrateshipments. However, by 2001several customers had inventorylevels equivalent to a 10 monthsupply and year-on-yearshipments fell by 40%.

Substrate sales have trackedthe device market, but decliningsubstrate ASPs have had amajor impact since 2000. Globalsales hit $430 million, thenplummeted to just $136 millionin 2003. More recently, the risingprice of raw gallium and asteady increase in waferdemand suggest that themarket could return to aroundthe $200 million level by 2009,although this is still less than halfof the 2000 peak.

The GaAs rollercoaster: 1995–2005

4.5

4.0

3.5

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01997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007

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GaAs markets 1995–2009: substrate shipments (right) have mirrored fluctuations in the device market.

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21COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 2005

COVER STORYcompoundsemiconductor.net

● Nitronex Corporation makes a GaN HEMTon a 4-inch silicon substrate.April ● Analyst firm CIBC says that it nowexpects the first downturn in the history ofthe GaAs industry ● Leading GaAsmanufacturers, including RFMD andVitesse, issue profit warnings ● The 2000compound semiconductor componentmarket is valued at $18 billion – more thandouble the 1998 figure.May ● CyOptics builds an InP fab inYokneam, Israel.June ● TRW creates 4-inch InP foundryVelocium.July ● Analysts describe Nortel’s financialreport as “below the worst-case scenario”● Nokia issues profit a warning, Anadigicslays off 10% of its workforce and RFMDshares slide alarmingly ● In a rare spot ofgood news, Nichia begins making 30 mWblue lasers in volume ● Lumileds launcheshigh-power Luxeon LED emitters.August ● Corning closes its Lasertronfacility before it is even opened officially● Shuji Nakamura’s book slams Nichia’scorporate culture and he files a lawsuitagainst his former employer.September ● Osram buys Infineon’s 49%share in Osram OS for $509 million, andlays the foundation of the company’s new40,000 m2 fab in Regensburg ● JDSUreports the largest corporate loss in history,

including a $44.8 billion write-down on itsbalance sheet.October ● As the shock of 9/11 attacks onthe US reverberates, Motorola and IQEshow off 12-inch GaAs-on-silicontechnology ● Veeco acquires MBEequipment vendor Applied Epi.November ● Litton Airtron shuts down itsGaAs substrate operation, disposes of 3 tonsof stockpiled gallium and sells its SiCsubstrate business to II-VI.December ● Nortel auctions hugeamounts of wafer fab equipment.

2002Hangover period

Jan/Feb ● Alpha andConexant merge theirwireless activities and namethe new company SkyworksSolutions ● Bookham buysMarconi’s optical

components business, including the Caswell,UK, GaAs fab ● Uniroyal TC’s financialcrisis is revealed in its annual report – thecompany soon files for bankruptcy.March ● TriQuint completes switch to6-inch GaAs manufacturing.April ● Sony launches Blu-ray disc datastorage technology ● Falling price of blueLEDs prompts a profit warning from Cree.May ● RHK’s chief analyst John Ryan tells

OFC delegates: “In 1999 and 2000everyone spent money like drunken sailors.Now we’re in the hangover period.”June ● TriQuint buys Infineon’s GaAsbusiness.July ● A USCB/IQE team reports a450 GHz InP DHBT ● Alcatel Optronicscuts workforce by 25%.September ● Nichia and Toyoda Goseisettle their long-standing differences ● Agereand ADC bail out of the increasinglygloomy-looking fiber business ● Filtroniccloses its Santa Barbara GaAs fab.October ● Toshiba and NEC launch anext-generation DVD format to rival Sony’sBlu-ray ● Phone sales pick up thanks tointroduction of color screens, driving bothGaAs IC and LED growth ● The Economistblames the telecoms bubble on WorldComchief executive Bernie Ebbers talking upInternet traffic growth figures. In July 2005,Ebbers is sentenced to 25 years in jail.November ● Bookham snaps up Nortel’soptical components business ● Nakamuraloses the first round of his patent battle withformer employer Nichia.December ● TriQuint buys Agere’soptoelectronics business for $40 millioncash ● Cree’s LED sales bounce back ondemand from camera phones ● RFMDconverts to 6-inch GaAs fab ● Fujitsumakes a 562 GHz HBT.

RETROSPECTIVE: 1995–2005

Without a doubt, the cell-phonehandset has been the killerapplication of the last decade –for both HB-LEDs and GaAsRFICs. As handsets and chiptechnology evolve, the futurecould see CMOS and GaAscombined in a novel type of RFfront-end, believes Rodd Novak,VP of marketing and businessdevelopment at PeregrineSemiconductor.

Peregrine has pioneered so-called UltraCMOS chips, whichuse an insulating sapphiresubstrate. While leading GaAsfirms are looking to the antennaswitch as a route to growth forproducts such as PHEMTs,Novak reckons that the addedcomplexity of future handsetsdemands a better solution.

With perhaps six radiosrequired for various bands, theantenna switch becomes criticalto improving the phone’selectrical efficiency. At themoment, power is drained whenthe output of the PA stage rampsup in simple situations – such as

the user holding the phone to hisor her ear. This is largelybecause the antenna is not firingout the RF signal effectively.

To get around the problem,either multiple antennae can beused, or a single antenna can bepower-matched more

effectively. Both solutionsrequire intelligent switches,which is where UltraCMOScould come in. “This is aboutbringing smarts to the poweramplifier,” said Novak. Much ofthe front end could beintegrated on the same die(defined by the area enclosed bydotted lines in the diagram),which Novak believes will “bringMoore’s law to the RF world”.

A lot depends on how theleading GaAs PA companiesapproach the issue, but as far asNovak is concerned,UltraCMOS can solve a keyproblem that they face, allowingthem to concentrate on PAs. Ifthat collaboration takes place, itcould have a marked effect onfuture handset architectures.

Handset evolution: how GaAs and CMOS might co-exist in future front-ends

HBT PAhi-band

low-bandHBT PA

CMOS controller

ANT

RX RX

TX

RX RX

TX

UltraCMOS die could integrate the functions inside the dotted line.

COVER STORY compoundsemiconductor.net

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 200522

2003Mergers & closures

January/February● Nichia and Sony ally on405 nm lasers ● InN’sbandgap turns out to be0.7 eV, not 2.0 eV aspreviously thought.

March ● Dow Corning buys Sterling fromUniroyal ● The HB-LED market surges50% on mobile phone demand.April ● Sony unveils a commercial Blu-raydisc recorder ● ATMI sells its GaAsepiwafer business to Sumitomo Chemical.May ● Cree bags a $100 million LEDpurchase order from SumitomoCorporation ● Bookham closes its 3-inchInP fab in Ottawa and ships it to Caswell.June ● Avanex buys the Alcatel andCorning optoelectronics units.July ● Former Cree CEO Eric Hunter andhis wife sue the company for $3 billion,later dropping the claim.August ● Agilent closes its UKoptoelectronics fab.September ● Vitesse closes its 6-inchGaAs fab – the industry’s first ● RFMDships its 250 millionth PA module.October ● Nichia sues Taiwan-basedEpistar over blue LEDs ● OxfordInstruments buys Thermo VG’s MBEbusiness.November ● Raytheon sells itscommercial GaAs unit to silicon giantFairchild Semiconductor ● A University ofIllinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) teammakes an InP/InGaAs HBT with an ft of504 GHz ● MOCVD pioneer Emcore sellsits TurboDisc business to Veeco.December ● Ommic becomes the firstEuropean InP foundry.

2004LED boom time

January ● Fujitsu QuantumDevices and SumitomoElectric Industries’Electronic Devices merge toform Eudyna Devices● Analysts say 500 million

phones sold in 2003 ● Audi’s A8 is the firstproduction vehicle to feature LED-basedforward lights.March ● Shuji Nakamura wins$189 million compensation from Nichia in aTokyo court.May ● ATMI sells its GaN unit to Cree.July ● Bookham exits the GaAs MMIC

business pioneered at its Caswell fab.August ● Taiwanese foundry Procomp isat the center of a financial scandal ● Aixtronseals its biggest-ever sale in an MOCVDsupply deal with Lumileds ● Motorolaspins off Freescale as a separate venture.September ● Nichia and Optotechcollaborate on GaN LEDs.December ● Taiwan GaAs foundries WINSemiconductor and GCTC merge.

2005Bouncing back

January ● Finisar andInfineon wrangle over thevalue of the Germancompany’s fiber-opticdivision ● The Nichiaversus Nakamura case is

finally settled, with the UCSB professorreceiving “just” $8 million from adelighted Nichia.April ● DARPA’s wide-bandgap projectsees $100 million invested in GaN.May ● TriQuint sells its InP optoelectronicsbusiness to CyOptics ● UIUC researchersbreak another record with a 600 GHz InP-based HBT.July ● Japanese company Yokogawa plansto spend $230 million building a GaAs fabto manufacture optoelectronic switches.August ● Agilent sells its semiconductordivision to a private equity group for$2.66 billion in cash, with Philips Lightingbuying out Agilent’s stake in Lumileds for$950 million ● Taiwan-based Epistar andUnited Epitaxy Company merge, formingan LED manufacturing powerhouse.

RETROSPECTIVE: 1995–2005

Unlike the boom–bust cyclethat has impacted on GaAsIC uptake, the HB-LEDmarket has grownconsistently since 1995.The only exception was aflat period in 2001.

Now, as the saturatingmobile handset marketslows, the period of veryrapid growth appears to beover. There are plenty of newapplications waiting in thewings – but the big questionis, when will these take off?

iSuppli analyst JagdishRebello warns that althoughsolid-state lighting willpenetrate applications suchas car headlamps, large-screen backlighting and,eventually, general

illumination, the industrymay have to be patient.

“Except for camera flash-lighting applications, mostnew markets for UHB-LEDsin the automotive andgeneral illuminationindustries are not yet closeto commercialization,” hecautioned.

As a result, Rebello is onlyexpecting 10% growth inthe HB-LED lamp and chipmarket this year, comparedwith a recent average ofaround 50%. That’s a trendset to continue, with onlysingle-digit growth annuallyover 2006–2010. “Severalhigh-profile applications,such as the backlighting oflarge-screen LCD displays,

will likely not live up to theearly hype,” he said.

And it will be at least 2010before LED lights reallypenetrate the generalillumination market andbecome a commodity itemlike today’s light bulbs.

In terms of rapid growth,the action is now switchingto what Rebello describesas ultra-high-brightness(UHB)-LEDs, defined by himas devices with a luminousflux of at least 20 lm. UHB-LEDs will command amarket of $2.3 billion by theend of the decade, hepredicts, by which timegeneral illuminationapplications should beworth around $875 million.

A decade of stunning growth for LEDs: what now?

UHB-LEDs (>20 lm) 2% standard LEDs 41%

HB-LEDs (>100 mcd) 57%

2004: $4.7 bnUHB-LEDs (>20 lm) 32% standard LEDs 26%

HB-LEDs (>100 mcd) 42%

2010: $7.4 bn

The UHB-LED (>20 lm) market is expected to grow 70% annually through 2010.

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COVER STORY compoundsemiconductor.net

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 2005 25

HBT MANUFACTURING

During the past decade GaAs hetero-junction bipolar transistors (HBTs)have strengthened their position as

the technology of choice for fabricating wire-less handset power amplifiers (PAs). By 2004,more than 75% of the 650 million mobilephones sold employed GaAs-HBT technol-ogy for power amplification. This dominanceresulted from several cost and performancefactors that enabled GaAs-HBTs to outper-form entrenched silicon and competing GaAs-FET technologies for PA designs.

GaAs-based bipolar transistors offered apowerful combination: high linearity and effi-ciency over a wide frequency range; highbreakdown voltage; and single-supply voltageoperation. Consequently, PAs built usingGaAs-HBTs delivered the RF performance androbustness required for demanding mobile-phone applications. From a manufacturing per-spective, several factors have allowedGaAs-HBT PA production costs to be highlycompetitive: the much smaller MMIC die sizesenabled by the vertical HBTdevice; extremelyhigh fabrication yields resulting from the larger,easy-to-process device geometries; streamlinedquick fabrication processes; and ease of inte-gration. Finally, ongoing bandgap engineeringof the material structure has kept GaAs-HBTtechnology at the industry’s leading edge bycontinually offering cost and performanceimprovements for PAICs and modules.

Nobel laureate Herb Kroemer’s early visionof wide-bandgap heterojunction structuresdelivering superior transistor performance isembodied in today’s GaAs-based HBTs. Thesuccess is partly due to the many advances inmaterial synthesis. For example, improve-ments to the reliability and performance ofHBTs have been delivered through alterationsin the emitter layer, most notably the replace-ment of AlGaAs alloys with InGaP. Still,given the ever-increasing sophistication ofemerging wireless products, and the resulting

search for improved PA capabilities, newapproaches to further enhancing the transis-tor’s performance must be explored.

Bandgap engineeringAt Kopin, efforts have been directed at engi-neering the bandgap of the base layer mater-ial – what we call GAIN-HBT technology.Incorporating dilute-nitride alloys into the baselayer of the GaAs-HBT lowers the turn-onvoltage, as well as enabling implementationof more sophisticated compositionally-gradeddevice structures. Recently, we reported resultsfrom first-generation GaAsInN-HBT(GAIN-HBT) ICs in pilot production. As predicted,

using GAIN-HBT devices in the MMICreduced turn-on, offset and knee voltageswhile improving speed performance and cir-cuit stability with temperature and bias. Theseenhancements were achieved without anychanges to our customers’device processing– a truly plug-and-play solution.

The baseline material structure of a GAIN-HBT transistor consists of an InGaPemitter, agraded GaAsInN base, and a GaAs collector(figure 1). This structure incorporates all of theprevious improvements to our InGaP/GaAs-HBTs, but further leverages performancethrough the insertion of a new base layer mate-rial. Material properties play a key role in crit-

High-speed MMICs with lower turn-on voltages can be built by switching GaAs-HBTs for GAIN-HBTswith a dilute nitride base, say Matt Micci and Roger Welser. The advancement could allow mobilephone designers to build more reliable handsets operating at higher data-rates.

Kopin bandgap engineeringimproves HBT performance

Fig. 1: GAIN-HBT devicesconsist of a compositionallygraded GaAsInN base insertedinto an otherwise standardInGaP/GaAs-HBT. The netresult enhances collectorcurrent (Ic) while minimizing thekey base current (Ib)components: neutral baserecombination (INBR), spacecharge recombination (ISCR),and reverse hole injection (IRHI).

emitter

Ie Ic

depletionregion

n-InGaP

EgE Φh

IRHI

Ib

Base

ISCR INBR

collector

n–-GaAs

p+-GaAsInN

–– –

– ––

–

1.7emitter energy-gap (eV)sp

ace

char

ge re

com

bina

tion

(A)

1.8 1.9 2.0

1×10–15

1×10–16

1×10–17

1×10–18

1×10–19

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rse

hole

inje

ctio

n (A

)

1×10–22

1×10–24

1×10–26

1×10–28

1×10–30

Iscr ~ niE ~ exp(–EgE/2kT)

Irhi ~ exp(–φh/kT)

Fig. 2 (left): Increasing the emitter layer energy-gap (EgE) reduces space chargerecombination (ISCR) and reverse hole injection (IRHI), improving device reliability andenhancing stability over temperature and bias. Fig. 3 (right): Replacing two GaAs-basedHBTs configured in series with two GAIN HBTs reduces operating voltage by 100meV to 2.5V,a critical threshold given today’s battery technologies and mobile-phone architectures.

3.1

2.9

2.7

2.5

2.3

2.1

1.9–300 –200 –100 0 100base energy-gap relative to GaAs (meV)

1st generation GAIN-HBT

GaAs

Vbe~EgB2

× V

be (@

25 K

a/cm

2 )

ical HBTdevice parameters, including the pri-mary base and collector current componentsdepicted in figure 1. The performance advan-tages of GAIN-HBTs arise from their highercollector current and the suppression of unde-sirable base current components – neutral basecombination (INBR), space charge recombina-tion (ISCR) and reverse hole injection (IRHI).

The HBTs’ wider emitter energy gap sup-presses reverse hole injection, therebyenabling higher base doping levels – a key ele-ment of HBT performance. This combinationmeans that HBTs can combine high DC gainwith low base sheet resistance and short basetransit times for increased RF power gain.Much of the early work on GaAs-HBTs wasdirected at achieving high, stable doping lev-els in the base, either by using carbon dopants(with their low diffusion coefficients), or bydeveloping techniques that suppress berylliumdopant diffusion. GAIN-HBTdevices use veryhigh base doping levels (4–5 × 1019 cm–3) pro-duced by special growth techniques that com-pensate for the tendency of carbon doping todecrease with the addition of indium.

The collector structure of GaAs-HBTs alsodirectly impacts on the transistor’s breakdownvoltage and microwave power gain. However,the addition of indium and nitrogen to the baselayer has no effect on the device parameterstypically governed by the collector design.With GAIN-HBT technology, collector thick-ness and doping can be readily tuned to meetspecific RF power and robustness require-ments, just as in standard GaAs-HBTs.

Reliability gainsIn the early days of GaAs-HBT development,reliability was a concern for the newer, noveldevices. However, in time, material engineer-ing increased mean-time-to-failure (MTTF)

rates to over 1 million h. This was primarilyachieved by optimizing the emitter’s layerproperties. First, the emitter’s thickness anddoping were adjusted to ensure the effective-ness of the ledge passivation of emitter mate-rial left around the device perimeter.

Once recombination at the surface of thebase layer was suppressed with a properlydesigned emitter ledge, recombinationenhanced defect reactions at the emitter–basejunction were found to limit device reliabil-ity. Emitter properties again played a criticalrole in improving average MTTF. As largeremitter energy-gaps suppress both the spacecharge recombination and reverse hole injec-tion components of the base current (figure2),device reliability was improved through

increasing the emitter’s energy-gap – typi-cally by using an InGaP emitter.

Device performance also benefited fromsuppressing the base current with larger emit-ter energy-gaps, which improved propertiessuch as the stability of the DC characteristicswith both bias and temperature. AlthoughInGaP and high aluminum-containingAlGaAs emitter layers both minimize basecurrent, the lower conduction band disconti-nuity of InGaPcan deliver ideal injection effi-ciency. For this reason, GAIN-HBT structuresretain InGaP as the emitter material.

Next-generation, feature-rich cellularphones will continue to demand greater per-formance and robustness due to increaseddata-rates and duty cycle requirements. While

COVER STORY compoundsemiconductor.net

COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 200526

HBT MANUFACTURING

Fig. 4: GAIN-HBT technology can beengineered to enhance RF performance.Here, a 50% better maximum cut-offfrequency is achieved in a GAIN-HBTdevice compared with a standard GaAs-HBT of similar collector structure.

Vbe (V)

cut-

off f

requ

ency

- f t

(GH

z)

10

GAIN-HBT

AE=59µm2

Vce=1.5 V100 mV

fpeak ~ 79 GHz

fpeak ~ 51 GHz

100

01.51.41.31.21.11.0

GaAs HBT

New technology often facesformidable barriers to itsadoption into high-volumeproducts. In addition, circuitand process developmentcosts, and reliabilityconcerns, can derail eventhe most promising oftechnologies. However, theproperties of GAIN-HBTdevices can help reducethese barriers to entry andallow a smoother paththrough customers’arduous platformqualification procedures.

One advantage of GAIN-HBT technology is that it isbuilt upon existing GaAsepitaxial and integrated-circuit fabricationprocesses. GAIN-HBTMMICs can be processedalongside conventionalGaAs-HBT circuits, usingidentical etches,metallization and circuitdesigns. Consequently,GAIN-HBT devices can beinserted into establishedcircuit products forenhanced performance.

GAIN-HBT devices arealso intrinsically morereliable. This was recentlydemonstrated by thetechnical teams at

Skyworks. In a presentationat the 2005 MANTECHConference, GAIN-HBTdevices exhibited MTTFsexceeding standardInGaP/GaAs-HBTs (figure5). These results fulfilledexpectations based uponthe current understandingof GaAs-HBT reliabilityphysics. The increaseddifference in energy-gapbetween the base andemitter layers in GAIN-HBTstructures is expected toreduce recombinationcurrents at thebase–emitter junction, andlower the recombination-enhanced defect reactionsthat limit GaAs-HBT

reliability.With proven gains in

baseline deviceperformance, high reliabilityand straightforwardimplementation, GAIN-HBTtechnology offers aneffective, practical roadmapfor the GaAs-HBTcommunity. We anticipate arevolutionary impact on thedesign of wireless poweramplifiers and high-speeddigital integrated circuitscurrently employing GaAs-based HBTs, includinglower-voltage operation,reduced powerconsumption, improvedlinearity characteristics andhigher-speed operation.

Fig. 5: GAIN-HBT structures offer excellent reliability.Accelerated ageing tests reveal that under typical operatingconditions the lifetime of these devices exceeds that ofGaInP/GaAs devices, at more than 1millionh.

GAIN-HBTs combine plug-and-play with excellent reliability

10time (h)

cum

ulat

ive

failu

res

(%)

100

1020304050607080

01000 10,000

Tcase = 200°CVce = 5.0VJc = 25kA/cm2

InGaP HBTs GAIN-HBTs

27COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 2005

COVER STORYcompoundsemiconductor.net

modifications to the emitter and collector havehelped enhance GaAs-HBT performance,even greater improvements can be producedby bandgap engineering of the base layer.Kopin’s GAIN-HBT technology offers agreater level of design freedom by utilizingdilute nitride GaAsInN alloys to enhance thevarious device characteristics that are gov-erned by base-layer properties.

One key parameter is the transistor’s turn-on voltage. GaAs’relatively large energy-gapleads to a fairly high turn-on voltage (~1.35 V@25 kA/cm2). When two transistors arestacked together – which is a common con-figuration for PAcontrol circuitry – the min-imum voltage required to operate the circuitis fundamentally constrained by the GaAsbase layer. Previously, lower energy-gapmaterials lattice-matched to GaAs have notbeen available to address this issue. However,nitrogen-containing III-V alloys are knownto have unique bandgap-bowing properties,enabling the growth of reduced energy-gapmaterials that can be lattice-matched or strain-minimized to GaAs. Just a modest 100 mVreduction in the base-layer energy gap can

extend the minimum operating voltage below2.5 V for GaAs-HBT PAs (figure 3).

The higher collector current resulting froma lower-bandgap base material alters the ratioof collector and base current components (fig-ure 1) in ways that improve transistor stabilityand efficiency. Researchers at Virginia Tech,VA, and elsewhere have shown that the DCcharacteristics of GAIN-HBT devices are sta-ble from 50 to 200 °C. Because GAIN-HBTdevices use a lower energy-gap material in thebase, they are really double heterojunctionstructures. Such structures have additionaldevice performance benefits, but extra care isneeded to suppress barriers to electron flow atbase–emitter and base–collector junctions, asis routinely done for high-speed, higher-costInP-based devices. GAIN-HBT devices alsopossess the expected lower offset voltagesrequired to bring the bipolar transistor out ofsaturation, which can be used to improve theRF power efficiency of amplifier circuits.

Perhaps GAIN-HBT technology’s mostexciting feature is its use of sophisticated base-layer structures. True bandgap engineering isachieved through the incorporation of com-

positional grading across the base layer. Theresulting built-in quasi-electric field acceler-ates electrons through the base, lowering theoverall transit time. Improved electron trans-port enhances several fundamental deviceproperties. Peak current gain is increased indevices employing compositional grading dueto a reduction in neutral base recombination.At the same time, microwave performance isimproved through a cut in base transit time(figure 4). This ability to simultaneouslyenhance DC and RF properties equips deviceand circuit designers with new tools to opti-mize GaAs-based PA performance. ●

Further readingL Rushing et al. 2005 CS MANTECH Digestp57.B Dickerson et al. 2003 GaAs MANTECHDigest p295.R E Welser et al. 2004 J. Phys: Condens.Matter 16 S3373.

Matt Micci is VP of sales and marketing forthe GaAs HBT group at Kopin. Roger Welseris director of Transistor Technology.

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COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 2005 29

PHOTONIC CIRCUITS

Californian start-up Infinera has rackedup $205 million in venture financingon its way to developing a network-

ing system that is powered by two highly inte-grated InPchips. Infinera’s CTO Dave Welch– who was previously at SDL and then JDSUniphase, following the pair’s high-profilemerger in 2000 that was initially valued at$41billion – describes how Infinera has devel-oped its system using a top-down philosophyand adopting manufacturing techniques usedin other areas of the electronics business.

Michael Hatcher: What does Infinera haveto show for its $205 million financing?Dave Welch: The majority was there to builda telecommunications system. Asmaller frac-tion was used for the development of photonicintegrated circuits [PICs] based on InP. We’vedeveloped two parts, a transmitter and areceiver. The transmitter carries 10 wave-lengths, each operating at 10 Gb/s, and com-bines the functionality of lasers, modulators,electro-absorption modulators and multi-plexing elements, as well as structure forwavelength locking and power control.

The receiver side has the inverse of that: thedemultiplexer, photodiodes and more controlstructure. Essentially, we have a standalone100 Gb/s DWDM transmitter and receiver,based on two chips made here in Sunnyvaleat our own facility.

MH: What chipmaking facilities do youhave?DW: It’s probably one of the world’s mostadvanced optoelectronics fabs. We’re heav-ily focused on process control, and have takena lot of the tools, philosophies and manufac-turing processes from the [wider] electronicsindustry – both silicon and III-Vs – thatweren’t previously used in optoelectronics,for example our metrology tools. We’re also

monitoring all of our process parameters, sothat we have hundreds of points with whichto monitor our process capability.

From a materials and a process control pointof view, I can’t say we’re the absolute best inInP, but we’re one of the very few leaders.

MH: How did you go about developing thePIC technology?DW: We were a bit different to most. First, weset out our vision of the component we wantedto make. We looked at the market and saw thatthe rest of the world was driving network sys-tems towards all-optical solutions. There aresome shortcomings to that approach, and webelieved in a different technology.

[For our solution] you need very low-costoptical-electronic-optical components to cre-

ate a digital optical network. We set out to builda team to make a component that nobody hadmade successfully before. So we hired someof the best InPdesign teams in the industry. Wealso hired guys from the LED industry,because of the very materials-centric, high-volume manufacturing philosophies involvedin that business [Fred Kish, Infinera’s VP ofdevelopment and manufacturing, was previ-ously at Agilent Technologies, where he wasinstrumental in the development of AlInGaPLEDs]. Combining that basic knowledge [ofInP] and experience in high-volume opto-electronics manufacturing has been a hugesuccess, and has really enabled us to changethe industry.

We began shipping products about a yearago and our PICs have been deployed in livenetworks since last fall. We’ve been rampingsince then, and are now manufacturing a prettyreasonable number of wafers.

MH: How do you deal with the overheadsof running an InP fab?DW: I don’t think the inherent costs of a fabare as great as people state. If you look at dis-tributed feedback [DFB] or Fabry-Perot laserchips, they are cheap and yet come fromplaces where the fabs aren’t running 24/7. Itis different to silicon fabs – you’re using tech-nologies that were built around smaller wafersizes. We’re pushing the technology to thenext generation, and so we also run a lot ofengineering wafers through our fab.

We’ve also developed 10 × 40 Gb/s tech-

At the height of the photonics boom, Dave Welch helped orchestrate the merger of SDL andJDS Uniphase. Now chief technology officer at start-up Infinera, he’s led the development of adigital optical network system based on massively integrated InP chips. Michael Hatcher hearsabout Infinera’s recipe for success as growth returns to the optical telecoms business.

Infinera moves in for thelong haul as fiber recovers

Infinera CTO Dave Welch says that thecompany is growing ahead of expectations,with systems deployed and carrying livetraffic in North America, Europe and Asia.

“We [Infinera] probablyhave one of the world’smost advancedoptoelectronics fabs.”DAVE WELCH, INFINERA

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PHOTONIC CIRCUITS

nology, so we can make a small die with400 Gb/s capacity. We have engineering pro-jects looking at how to make these things workwithout cooling, and we’ve shown that that’spossible as well.

MH: What’s driving 400Gb/s development?DW: The cost of high-capacity systems isdominated by optics. The more of the opticsthat you can pull onto a monolithic chip, thegreater the impact you can make on the over-all cost structure. And if you can get the costof the transmission components to approachthat of the amplifiers then all of a sudden thenetwork architecture changes. Then you’vegot a true network where you can add and dropinformation everywhere in the system, andmanage the bits electronically instead of inthe optical realm. That gives the carrier a hugeadvantage through better performance mon-itoring and bit management.

But the key is to eliminate the cost of con-verting photons to electrons. If you can makethat transformation cost small enough, thenyou are far better off doing all of the bit man-agement in electronic form.

MH: How can Infinera make the verticallyintegrated business model work when thelikes of Nortel and Lucent have failed?DW: That’s a good question. It’s all aboutenabling the component breakthrough andthen taking advantage at the system level.Today, I can’t get the components [that I need]for our system from anywhere else and Ibelieve it will be a number of years beforesuch components are commoditized, or arereadily available in the outside world.Certainly if they are, we’ll focus our fab onareas that give us differentiation.

If you’re in the optics business, you need tohave control over the optics that give you dif-ferentiation. The great breakthroughs in opti-cal communications have been made at thecomponent level. Back in the early 1990s itwas the erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA)which changed the landscape in communica-tions systems and enabled the cost benefits ofwavelength-division multiplexing (WDM).Nortel rode on the back of two technologies –lithium niobate and III-Vmaterials for 10Gb/selectronics. Without those component break-throughs they would have been unable to pen-

Infinera’s 100Gb/s transmitter module isbased around highly integrated InPoptoelectronic components. Combinedwith a similar receiver module, thetechnology is the key to Infinera’s digitaloptical network system, which networkoperators say allows them to deliver high-bandwidth optical services more flexiblythan they can using conventional analogdense wavelength-division multiplexing.

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etrate the market, as they were not the domi-nant player in 2.5 Gb/s transmission systems.

On the other hand, we do buy optics fromexternal sources – we use a lot of XFPs on theclient side [of the system]. On the line side wefeel that we can improve system performanceby making something that isn’t available inthe wider market. But for those companies thatare selling what I’d call commodity chips, it’sa pretty tough market these days. The volumesjust aren’t there.

MH: How would you describe business atthe moment?DW: Somewhere between very good andexceptional. We’re very pleased with theuptake of our product, and when we deploya 2000 km route, it comes up in a very shortamount of time compared to our competitors.That’s indicative of the robustness of our prod-uct. Customers have been very pleased withthat, and at this point the growth rate of ourbusiness is exceeding expectations.

MH: Does that growth reflect a generalupturn, or are you taking market share?DW: The majority is from market share – how-ever, the overall market is also growing. Allthe customers that we’ve been engaged withhave indicated that data traffic continues togrow at a healthy clip. They’ve now exhaustedtheir systems inventories, and their acquisi-tions of other networks and excess bandwidthhave been absorbed. So I think we’re startingto see a recovery too. For us, it’s a multi-bil-lion-dollar market and we have a chance totake a good chunk of it. We have traffic on ourPICs in Asia, North America and Europe, andI feel pretty confident about our prospects.

MH: What are the key challenges facingInfinera now?DW: Our first phase was very engineering-oriented and company-centric, and we’verapidly transitioned to being customer-cen-tric. I think a good measure of that can be seenwith our Level 3 deployment, which is goingreally well. Now, the challenge is to drive mar-ket share and profit growth while making surethat we’re innovating for the next generation.

MH: How do you see the future of the InPphotonics sector?DW: There are some products that will bestandardized – I think you’ll end up with twoor three winners and then half-a-dozen hang-ers-on. With more modules based on multi-source agreements, only the companies that

can differentiate in that area will survive.It’s unclear to me why you need foundries

for that type of product. You have to be ableto drive enough volume to justify the businessthat you’re in, and by going to a foundrymodel you just split your profit margin. Andthere are some foundries out there, so theindustry doesn’t need to establish them – theyalready exist. The problem is that there justisn’t enough volume in the telecoms market,or the right product set, to do that.

Outside of the component we make our-selves there is a unique set of functionalities[that we require], and if we could findprocesses capable of doing that then a foundrymodel makes more sense. However, if all theworld wants is lots of DFB laser chips I’m notsure that the foundry buys you a lot.

The foundry’s value is to apply commonprocesses to lots of different applications, butif there are only a small number of applicationsthen I’m not sure about the need for it. If youneed a lot of different functions then maybethat model starts making more sense. But,unlike silicon, optoelectronics only has a smallset of functions to serve – essentially to trans-mit or receive light. Until you start trying tomanage the bits photonically I’m not sure howdiverse that set of applications really is. ●

Infinera’s Fred Kish will present a talk atCS-MAX 2005 on the company’s PICdevelopment and the manufacturing methodsit has adopted. See compoundsemiconductor.net/csmax for the full conference agenda.

● January: Germany-based networkoperator Freenet deploys Infinera’s digitaloptical system to carry Internet traffic to6 million customers, saying it took just threedays to turn up the initial 700 km route.● May: Level 3 Communicationsannounces that it will install Infineraequipment across a “substantial” portion ofits 23,000 km fiber-optic network in the USand Europe. Installation is expected to becompleted by the end of the year.● June: OnFiber Communications, US,deploys PIC-based equipment in a numberof US metropolitan networks.● July: After a nine-month trial of Infineraequipment, Citynet installs, tests and turnsup a 1100 km ring network in three days.“Other systems would have required four tofive times as long,” said Citynet.

PIC deployments in 2005

PHOTONIC CIRCUITS

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COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR SEPTEMBER 2005 33

Bookham targets integrationsweet spot for metro network

Optoelectronic integration representsthe future for InP, says Andy Carter,Bookham’s vice-president of research

and development. He believes, however, thatsome technologists have become carried awaywith producing very large, highly integratedchips, and that they are overlooking issues ofcost and yield.

“[Bookham has] the right balance betweenhigh yields and the performance that the mar-ket demands,” said Carter. According to him,Bookham’s unique combination of a tunablelaser and an integrated broadband modulatorprovides the ideal small-form-factor solutionfor 10 Gb/s metro networks.

Bookham’s method is to select the bestmaterials technology for each device, asopposed to manufacturing overly complexdevices that “force functions” onto a particu-lar material system. The company believesthat its linear integration approach, which usesa sequence of components for a signal chan-nel rather than parallel integration of multiplechannels, is driven by market demand.

Bookham has packaged a digital supermodedistributed Bragg reflector (DS-DBR) laserwith a spot-size converter Mach–Zehnder(SSC-MZ) modulator to produce a broadbandtransmitter that targets the 10Gb/s metro over-lay network. This module, which builds uponthe company’s fixed-wavelength design, usesan industry-standard butterfly box, with thelaser and modulator mounted on a commonthermo-electric cooler to improve stability.

Carter points out that Bookham’s customersare not demanding higher levels of integra-tion in which the tunable laser and broadbandmodulator are combined on the same chip.However, the company’s laser and modulatorcould be scaled monolithically to meet futurenetwork requirements.

Although Carter believes that monolithictransmitters have issues associated with costand yield, fixed-wavelength monolithicdesigns are available on the market. For exam-ple, Apogee Photonics, which was formed by

the merger of T-Networks and ASIP(see p15),manufactures a 10 Gb/s electro-absorptionmodulator and a single-frequency laser on asingle chip; and Infinera Corporation hasdeployed highly integrated photonic circuitsin its own digital network system (see p29).

Slashing inventoriesBookham’s DS-DBR lasers, which were firstlaunched at OFC 2004, are said to offerseveral advantages over fixed-wavelengthsources and to make ideal drop-in replace-ments in metro networks.

Today’s metro networks typically operate at 2.5 Gb/s across the C-band (1530–1565 nm) using fixed-wavelength lasers.However, Carter says that the move fromcircuit-based services to packet serviceshas increased the deployment of 10 Gb/sEthernet networks. Bookham’s tunable laser,alongside its broadband modulator, can beadjusted to emit at any wavelength within the

band and to support the increased data rates.Tunable lasers benefit manufacturers becausethey can reduce the number of componentsthat are produced, and customers can carry avastly reduced inventory, says Carter.

One advantage offered by DS-DBR lasersthat is highly valued by Bookham’s customersis what Carter describes as “wavelength pro-tection”. Since tunable laser emission can beset remotely, if one of these lasers is fitted intoa network it can be used to replace any fixed-wavelength laser that fails. And looking fur-ther ahead, customers may be able to improvedata transmission by adjusting the wave-lengths of their tunable lasers, noted Carter.The laser also features “dark tuning”, whichprevents network interference by switchingout transmission when the laser is retuned.

Bookham’s 1.7 mm-long DS-DBR designfeatures four main sections: a rear phase grat-ing, which produces a comb of reflectionlines; a phase control section; a multiquantum

A tunable laser and a broadband modulator provide the best option for next-generation metronetworks, according to Bookham. This combination can ease the transition from fixed-wavelengthcomponents to broadband monolithic transmitters. Richard Stevenson reports.

Bookham produces tunable laser chips at Caswell, UK. The lasers are designed at Caswelland in Kanata, Canada, prototyped in Paignton, UK, and assembled in Shenzhen, China.

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well gain section; a multicontact grating at thefront of the device, which is used for coarsewavelength selection (figure 1). A semicon-ductor optical amplifier is situated beyond thefront grating to provide 3–4 dB of gain.

The DS-DBR laser is capable of broadbandgain. Its emission wavelength is coarselytuned by adjusting the front and rear gratings,before the phase current (Iphase) is used to fine-tune the wavelength. The front grating has abroad reflection profile, but the rear gratingcontains seven sharp reflection peaksbetween 1520 nm and 1560 nm spaced 6.8 nmapart. These sharp peaks control the lasingwavelength and prevent modal competitionby selecting just one of the available longi-tudinal modes.

The tunable lasers are manufactured in asimilar way to the fixed-wavelength sourcesthat Bookham has produced for many years.The process starts with two separate MOCVDgrowth steps on 3 inch InPwafers. This is fol-lowed by grating fabrication, further growth,and additional steps that involve dielectric andmetal depositions and photolithography. Thewafer is then thinned, cleaved, coated andfinally packaged. The resulting lasers have a42.5 nm tuning range that covers 214 differ-ent telecommunication channels, and an out-put power of 13.5 ± 0.1 dBm.

Broadband modulatorsBookham has developed broadband MZ mod-ulators that can be integrated with the com-pany’s lasers to form fullband tunabletransmitters for metro networks. Untilrecently, Carter believed that the linearity ofthese modulators might be insufficient forbroadband operation, and he was surprisedthat only small adjustments enabled thisdevice to cover the entire C-band.

MZ modulators are sophisticated opticalswitches that contain an interferometer. Laserlight entering the device is split into one of twopaths, and the phase difference between thetwo recombining signals dictates the device’soutput. If no phase difference exists, recombin-ation is constructive (the “on” state), but if thetwo signals are exactly out of phase, destruc-tive interference occurs corresponding to nolight output from the device (the “off” state).

The relative phase is adjusted by biasing thetwo waveguides. Changes in the applied elec-tric field alter the refractive index of the wave-guide, adjusting its refractive index and itsrelative phase shift. In fact, Bookham hasdesigned these modulators to split the incom-ing light into two signals of differing magni-

tude. By using differential biasing, the devicecan impart a negative chirp to the emittinglight. This increases the distance that the lightcan propagate before dispersion compensa-tion is needed.

Bookham is now producing its third gen-eration of MZ modulators, although these lat-est devices are the company’s first to be reallysuited to broadband operation. “The InPmodulator has its genesis within Nortel, whowere pioneers of this component from themid-1990s onwards,” said Carter.

Bookham has built on Nortel’s earlierdevelopment of low-voltage modulators byimproving features such as chirp and extinc-tion ratio (the difference in light intensitybetween the on and off states). Carter cites theintroduction of SSCs as one example of a tech-nology that has been used to meet the chang-ing demands of customers. Earlier modulatorshad a very small spot size, which made themdifficult to package with a low loss. However,the SSC delivers efficient, low-cost couplinginto the MZ waveguide.

Process controlThe company’s latest SSC-MZ modulator,which is used in products such as the LMC10series of transmitters, has an overall chiplength of 3 mm. Incorporated into the deviceis an input SSC, an MZ modulator, a multi-stage electro-absorption variable optical atten-uator (VOA), a tap/detector that can be usedwith an external circuit to adjust the bias onthe modulator and optimize performance, andan output SSC.

Akey advantage of the SSC-MZ modulatoris that the performance of the VOAand detec-tor, as well as the RF bandwidth, which revealsthe maximum switching speed of the device,can be predicted and controlled without screen-ing every manufactured component. Instead offull-scale testing, the RF performance of asmall proportion of the modulators is deter-mined by chip-on-carrier measurements.Insertion losses, switching voltages, DC extinc-tion ratios, and absorption as a function of volt-age are also measured for various wavelengths.

Carter says that after recording data frommore than 20,000 devices fabricated on morethan 100 wafers, Bookham has demonstratedthe high yield of the process. This is becausethe chip’s location on the wafer produces onlysmall variations in performance, provided thatthe wafer has been grown and processed tospecification. The performance of Bookham’sMZ modulators is at least the equal of theirlarger legacy LiNbO3 rivals, which are alreadydeployed in metro networks, says Carter.

In trials, Bookham’s integrated laser/modulator package has transmitted 10.7 Gb/sacross the whole C-band, through dispersionof 1600 ps/nm over standard industry fiberwith penalties below 1 dB. The company willstart sampling the transmitter to customerslater this year. The response could shape thetype of products seen in tomorrow’s network,and the level of integration seen in optoelec-tronic components. ●

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Fig. 1. Bookham’s tunable lasers have a broadband gain, and the emission wavelength iscoarsely selected by adjusting currents for the front and rear gratings (Ifront and Irear), andthen fine- tuned with Iphase. The output power is adjusted with Igain and ISOA.

Varying the current applied to the contactsof the tunable laser can sweep its emissionacross the entire C-band, which is used inmetro networks. Bookham hopes that thisfeature will fuel the sales of replacementparts for fixed-wavelength emitters.

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IQE, a UK-based producer of epitaxial wafersand substrates, has posted revenue of £9.7mil-lion ($17.3 million) for the fiscal half-yearending June 30. Sales were up £2.3 millionsequentially, and were £1.6 million higherthan the equivalent period last year.

The net loss for the latest half-year was£2.9 million, which is an improvement on thelosses of £4.6 million and £5.5 million postedin the two previous half-year periods. Increasesin operating efficiency helped cut the com-pany’s gross loss from 25% in 2004 to 5% forthe first half of this year.

“We exceeded our goal of monthly cashbreak-even in June and posted our firstmonthly operating profit since June 2001,”said IQE’s CEO, Drew Nelson.

“Although the coming months will see somevariability, we expect to achieve a monthly

cash break-even or above on an ongoing basisduring the later part of 2005.”

Profits would help to strengthen IQE’s cashposition, which has fallen over the last yearfrom £15.5 million to £5.9 million.

In order to improve efficiencies, IQE hasreduced the number of staff at UK-basedWafer Technology, a substrate manufacturerthat forms part of the IQE Group.

Freiberger makes gains as GaAs rampsBy Richard StevensonMarket research firm Strategy Analytics pre-dicts that the global semi-insulating (SI) GaAssubstrate market will increase by 43% in termsof area over the next five years.

Sales of SI GaAs substrates, which are usedby the microelectronics industry to makedevices such as power amplifiers, are expectedto rise from 14 million square inches in 2004to 20 million square inches in 2009.

Worldwide revenue for SI GaAs substrateswill increase by 9–10% each year, says AsifAnwar, the director of Strategy Analytics’GaAs service. In 2003 SI GaAs sales gener-ated $136 million, and, if revenue increasesfollow Anwar’s prediction, this market will

be worth more than $200 million by 2009.Freiberger Compound Materials, which has

the second largest share of this sector, is con-tinuing to make gains on the market leader,Sumitomo Electric. The shipments from thesetwo manufacturers, along with those fromthird-placed Hitachi Cable, accounted formore than 90% of all wafers shipped in 2004.

Although 2003 was expected to mark thecross-over from 4 inch to 6 inch material,4 inch substrates still account for 50% of theSI GaAs market.

Sales of 4 inch substrates have been buoyedby an increase in manufacturing volumes atRF chip maker Skyworks. Eudyna of Japan isalso producing its devices on a 4 inch line,

even though the company has both 4 inch and6 inch facilities.

Anwar says that a rise in the use of HBTtechnology for cell-phone power amplifiersis increasing the demand for substrates pro-duced by vertical gradient freeze (VGF) tech-nology. AXTuses this technology exclusively,Sumitomo and Freiberger use both the VGFand the liquid encapsulation Czochralski(LEC) technique, while Hitachi Cable usesthe LEC method only.

Although AXT had just a 6% share of theSI GaAs market in 2004, Anwar believes thatthe company should not be “written off”. Hesays that AXT is pricing its products aggres-sively and has good cash reserves.

IQE reports increasein half-year revenue

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Germany-based Aixtron has lowered its rev-enue guidance for the fiscal year, and has saidthat low spending on capital equipment byLED manufacturers is to blame.

The MOCVD equipment vendor originallyexpected to post full-year sales of 7160 mil-lion to 7170 million, but has now dropped theforecast by 710 million.

“Aixtron believes that the business climatemay remain difficult for the remainder of2005, with a possible pick-up in activity in thesecond half of the year,” reported the Aachen

outfit in its second-quarter results.Aixtron posted a revenue of 744.4 million

($54.8 million) in the quarter that endedJune 30. This figure was 33% up on the sameperiod last year, but the latest results includedsales from the recently acquired atomic-layer-deposition specialist, Genus (see CompoundSemiconductor April p42).

Orders for equipment during the last threemonths totalled 728.4 million. This is con-siderably lower than the same period last year,when the figure was 736.9 million.

Aixtron reduces forecast for full-year sales

● Veeco Instruments has reported sales ofepitaxy equipment worth $14.6 million inthe quarter that ended on June 30. TheWoodbury, NY, company said that the HB-LED market remained weak. WhileVeeco’s other market sectors gatheredstrength, bookings for MBE and MOCVDmachines stood at $12.4 million.● MBE equipment manufacturer Riberhas posted revenue of 75.4 million($6.7 million) for the first half of 2005, up50% year-on-year. The sales included oneMBE 49 production machine and oneCompact 21 research machine. The Frenchfirm’s sales order backlog on June 30 was713.6 million. This included orders forone MBE 7000 production machine andfor 13 reactors designed for research.● Bandwidth Semiconductor, a whollyowned subsidiary of Spire Corporation, isoffering MOCVD-grown epitaxial wafersthat emit between 630 nm and 655 nm.The wafers can be designed as red surface-emitting LEDs or VCSELs, tomeet customers’needs. “VCSELs andLEDs fabricated from BandwidthSemiconductor’s MOCVD wafers havedemonstrated high yield for a number ofdifferent devices. We give customersexactly what they want,” said Ed Gagnon,Bandwidth’s general manager.● Tekcore of Taiwan, a manufacturer ofGaN-based LED chips, has ordered threeThomas Swan close-couple showerheadMOCVD reactors from Aixtron.

In brief

In its latest half-year, IQE posted its firstsequential increase in sales since 2001.

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