Kyma Technologies Inc., Raleigh, N.C., announces that it has licensed its aluminum nitride PVD of nanocolumns technology to GT Advanced Technologies, Merrimack, N.J. The technology developed deposits a high-quality growth-initiation layer of aluminum nitride on wafers prior to gallium nitride deposition.
GT plans to commercialize a PVD tool that will complement its hydride vapor phase epitaxy system, which is currently in development. The combined offering will provide LED manufacturers with a higher throughput, lower cost solution to produce gallium nitride (GaN) templates on patterned or planar wafers. GT already has a high volume prototype tool incorporating Kyma’s PVDNC technology, and expects to offer a production-ready tool in the first half of 2015.
“Kyma’s innovative nano-columnar PVDNC technology adds an important component to our expanding LED product base,” said Tom Gutierrez, GT’s president and CEO. “Our goal is to offer a range of solutions that improve the quality and lower the cost of LED manufacturing. The combination of GT’s PVD AlN tool coupled with the HVPE system we are developing is expected to offer LED manufacturers a lower cost solution to producing epi-ready wafers compared with today’s current manufacturing techniques.”
According to Kyma’s President and CEO, Keith Evans, “We are pleased that GT has decided to commercialize our PVDNC technology. Through years of innovation and production of AlN templates, we are convinced of the real and demonstrated benefits of nano-columnar AlN films to the LED industry.”
Today, GaN deposition on epi wafers is done in slower and more expensive MOCVD tools. By utilizing the combined PVD and HVPE processes to create low cost GaN templates, manufacturers will be able to increase the throughput of their existing LED production lines and lower their capital expenditures because they will need fewer MOCVD tools.
