EXECUTIVE VIEW Q&
Q Describe the state of the LED industry?
A The LED industry is still feeling the effects of overcapacity and this has
led to increased industry consolidation. However, we expect to see growth driven by demand for LEDs in general lighting applications. The pressure is on to drive down manufacturing costs to a price point that will enable consumer adoption. New developments including larger- diameter substrates and more automated processes to increase manufacturing efficiency and yields, and new substrate technologies like silicon that can help reduce production costs.
Q You offer tools for wafer bonding and the creation of photonic
structures. How much are these technologies appearing in today’s LEDs?
A Our wafer bonding solutions enable vertical LED architectures
and the integration of metallic mirror layers, while lithography products create photonic structures in the form of patterned sapphire substrates to increase light extraction. Some of these features appear in any high-brightness LED product, while other features will gain traction within a few product generations. Currently several EVG720 UV-Nanoimprint Lithography systems utilizing our next-generation SmartNIL process have been installed, evaluated and accepted at customer sites.
Q Inserting photonic structures boosts LED efficiency, but adds to
fabrication costs. Is it worth it?
A LED technology is ideal for next- generation lighting due to its ability
to reduce energy consumption but improvements in efficiency are needed for LEDs to be feasible. Adding photonic
A Hermann Waltl
EV Groups’ Executive Sales and Customer Support Director offers insights into the evolving LED industry
structures to LEDs by patterning the bare surface of sapphire substrates is one option. While this adds to the process, the outcome is greater LED lighting efficiency, which is getting harder to extract from improvements in the epitaxial growth process.
Q You produce tools based on optical and imprint technologies
for the production of photonic structures. What are the pros and cons of both approaches?
A The LED industry uses our mask aligners for all generic patterning needs.
For small features − below 3 µm − EVG offers projection (PHABLE) and imprint lithography (SmartNIL). The PHABLE technology, which has been licensed from Eulitha, is suited to low-cost high-volume manufacturing of growth substrates, such as patterned sapphire. SmartNIL provides design freedom for complex photonic features, which are attractive for enhancing light extraction and colour management in innovative LED architectures. SmartNIL enabled lithography systems support feature sizes down to 40 nm.
Q What new tools are you developing?
A We recently introduced our next generation nanoimprint solution, the EVG720, which supports EVG’s SmartNIL process, and PHABLE exposure system—both of which can be used for manufacturing photonic components that help increase the efficiency of LEDs.
QSetting aside the LED business, what do you see as the most
exciting market for your tools?
A The industry is undergoing change as well as double-digit growth
rates across key sectors. From new advances in silicon photonics to
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support higher data transfer rates in telecommunications, high-mobility transistors for mobile phones or satellite television broadcasting, high- performance/low-power logic devices for portable electronics, novel RF devices or high-power LEDs, heterogeneous integration is critical to achieving new breakthroughs in device performance. Wafer bonding is an essential process for enabling the integration of compound semiconductor and engineered materials with dissimilar properties.
Last year EV Group announced that we are developing equipment and process technology to enable electrically conductive, covalent bonds of compound semiconductors, other advanced engineered substrates and dissimilar, heterogeneous materials at low temperature for applications such as silicon photonics, power device manufacturing, MEMS and solar. At SEMICON Europa we are launching our first ComBond equipment platform for these applications.
Q Where will the most significant growth occur in the company?
A When one looks at the rise of companies built on the collection and
analysis of information to provide value-added services, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple, as well as the billions of connected devices in the world and the drive for improvements in health care, energy efficiency, transportation and other areas, it’s clear that we are in the era of Big Data and Internet of Things. Sensors are an essential element to gathering the vast volumes of data needed for emerging applications in these areas, while silicon photonics are expected to play a vital role in transmitting the huge amounts of data generated by the sensors at very high speeds and at low power.
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