news digest ♦ LEDs the second half of 2013.
The company also points out that several factors have driven the recent interest in ASF-grown sapphire as a viable alternative to materials currently used in mobile and POS devices.
These include sapphire’s strength, ruggedness and scratch-resistance as well as its ability to improving user experience.
GTAT says its ASF platform is well positioned to meet the quality and high-volume production requirements for crystal growth for these applications.
The cost of sapphire is expected to be within an acceptable range given its compelling value proposition. GTAT expects that the cost for growing and fabricating sapphire for mobile devices will be considerably lower than for LED applications for a number of reasons.
These include the ASF crystal growth process which GTAT says can be optimised to deliver higher yields of useable material resulting in lower costs when harvested for bricks, screens or cores and wafers.
For a start, fabrication costs have the potential to come down driven by equipment that can slice boules into bricks rather than cores.
Other activities include GTAT working with consumable suppliers and cost reductions from a growing Asian supply chain.
Several fabrication steps may be eliminated when fabricating sapphire for mobile devices including CMP (chemical mechanical polishing) as well as rough and fine lapping, with the latter being replaced by faster grinding processes.
What’s more, mobile screen fabrication may allow for the use of existing polishing and grinding equipment capacity at existing large volume subcontractors in Asia, removing the requirement for new fabrication equipment.
As a result, the company believes that sapphire screens for mobile devices, once commercialised, will have a cost of ownership that will be competitive with current solutions.
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www.compoundsemiconductor.net October 2012
More specifically, GTAT estimates that a fully fabricated sapphire smartphone screen will be $10 to $20 higher than the price OEMs pay for current screen solutions, with the differential dependent on the level of vertical integration by the OEMs or their manufacturing partners.
Given the compelling overall value proposition of ASF sapphire screens, GTAT says that initial feedback from industry leaders suggests this cost for a superior product will be acceptable.
Factors affecting this may be a lower rate of cracked or broken screens, providing a better overall user experience.
The company also points out that the expected price differential between ASF-grown sapphire and the “current solutions” is less than what consumers typically pay to replace a single cracked screen as well as being less than the cost of screen protectors and protective cases.
GTAT also expects that there will be significant potential to reduce the cost of producing sapphire smartphone screens over time as the industry matures, increases scale, vertically integrates and continues to advance technology innovations at both the crystal growth and fabrication stages.
Osram Black Flat LED lights up roads
With a virtually constant light output even at high application temperatures, the III-nitride LED is suited to vehicle headlight applications
Osram Opto is marketing the Oslon Black Flat LED for automotive front lighting systems.
Equipped with state-of-the-art chip and packaging technology and a ceramic converter, this new LED product in the Oslon Black series is a high performance light source for automotive applications.
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