Plessey presents LED technology & GaN-on-Silicon

Built on the success of its predecessors, the conference featured industry insiders delivering more than thirty presentations spanning six sectors. The presentations detailed breakthroughs in device technology; offered insights into the current status and the evolution of compound semiconductor devices; and provided details of advances in tools and processes that will help to drive up fab yields and throughputs.

The rapid growth of the LED industry in recent years is now focused towards reducing manufacturing costs to accelerate its penetration into the general lighting market according to Plessey. GaN-on-Silicon technology offers tremendous potential to unlock cost savings in terms of wafer size scaling, reduced binning over conventional sapphire-based LEDs and the incorporation of advanced, yet low cost, CSP techniques.

The popularity of advanced 'package-free' LEDs bodes with GaN-on-Silicon is increasing, as higher yields can be achieved in a thin film process through wet etching of the substrate. This is compared to laser lift-off for sapphire and the surface emitting nature of GaN-on-Silicon LEDs, this is a good match to take advantage of the smaller form factors that CSP offers.  

Plessey has developed a proprietary epitaxial and device architectures to exploit this technology. Using a depreciated CMOS manufacturing line also allows low cost semi-automatic operation and cassette wafer loading system.

Dr. Keith Strickland, Chief Technical Officer, Plessey, said: "Plessey's LEDs are produced using its proprietary GaN-on-Silicon technology. By using standard silicon semiconductor production techniques and process automation, Plessey is able to produce high-volume, high-quality, industry standard LEDs that are demanded in the consumer electronics market."

"Combining the inherent features of GaN-on-Silicon, such as low thermal resistance and surface emission, with advanced packaging technology will permit monolithic integration of LEDs with other component and provide differentiated solutions to the solid state lighting market. Plessey is working with a number of 'blue chip' lighting companies to develop Application Specific LEDs for this next generation of lighting solutions."