interview industry
Achieving GaN heights
Riber is a French company that has evolved into the leading suppliers of Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) for the Gallium Nitride (GaN) industry. Michel Picault,
Marketing Director and Pierre Bouchaib, Sales Director of Riber spoke to
Compound Semiconductor about the outlook for the industry and for their company.
A
GaN for LED is unique in its ability to produce blue light that can be converted to white light. GaN for
CATV enables high power in a range of microwave frequency spectrums, for transmission across a wide band. GaN for Solar can capture green and blue light from the solar spectrum increasing the energy captured for higher currents in the PV cell. In RF and diode devices GaN can sustain high voltage for new devices required for power electronics in electrical or hybrid cars (900 volts). In any electrical car at least 5 to 7 heavy duty diodes or IC’s made out of GaN are necessary.
Q A
Q A
Riber states they are a world leader in MBE products. Why do you think this is true and will an increase in application demand for GaN encourage new players aiming for some of your market share?
Riber is the world leader in MBE with more than 50% of the market share on a yearly basis with
twice as many installed tools than the next competitor. This has been the case since MBE began in the 1970’s. Riber’s customer base is evenly distributed across global regions with around 30% in each. Riber offers the widest range of MBE systems covering diverse applications (IIIV, II VI, ZnO) and usages (R&D , pilot line and Production). We have preferred Ammonia Nitride production instead of RF plasma although we have such systems in the field. The Ammonia Nitride approach allows 3 to 5 times higher growth speeds which is crucial for a customer’s costs. There are few competitors at present and Riber’s experience makes it difficult for new players.
Q
Why is GaN so important across such a wide range of communities eg LEDs, solar,
community access television components (CATV)?
Q A
Q A
what is Compact21 is and why was it funded by the European Community (EC)?
Compact21 is a research laboratory working on MBE with a goal to improve manufacturing of
monocrystaline films of compound semiconductor materials used in microwave, optoelectronic and sensing applications. Funding was received through a EC R&D programme because GaN is viewed as an enabler for future microwave and lasers devices.
Some industry analysts expect a bottleneck in MOCVD tools that may impact on the HB LED supply. Do you think this could be a problem in?
There might be tensions in MOCVD supply, and some end-users might consider developing their own tools, but supply will ultimately catch-up demand.
Why is your MBE system more competitive than those produced by your rivals and what does
2010 hold for Riber?
This depends upon application. For the GaN LED market, MOCVD is a better choice. Compared to
other MBE systems our GaN Systems have proven to produce good GaN structures (Mainly in RF) over large substrate in a real production environment. We believe 2010 will be a good year in terms of R&D MBE Systems but also in production systems sales. We will continue to increase our MBE market while diversifying into breakthrough technologies such as OLED and CIGS for our effusion cells.
April/May 2010
www.compoundsemiconductor.net 9
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224 |
Page 225 |
Page 226 |
Page 227 |
Page 228 |
Page 229 |
Page 230 |
Page 231 |
Page 232 |
Page 233 |
Page 234 |
Page 235 |
Page 236 |
Page 237 |
Page 238 |
Page 239 |
Page 240 |
Page 241 |
Page 242 |
Page 243 |
Page 244 |
Page 245 |
Page 246 |
Page 247 |
Page 248 |
Page 249 |
Page 250 |
Page 251 |
Page 252 |
Page 253 |
Page 254 |
Page 255 |
Page 256 |
Page 257 |
Page 258 |
Page 259 |
Page 260 |
Page 261 |
Page 262 |
Page 263 |
Page 264 |
Page 265 |
Page 266 |
Page 267 |
Page 268 |
Page 269 |
Page 270 |
Page 271 |
Page 272