GaN-on-glass process could yield 48% savings for LED epitaxy

A cost of ownership model for a deposition process developed by BluGlass Ltd could result in significant cost savings for LED manufacturing.
Courtesy of Semiconductor Today.

BluGlass Ltd, a Sydney, Australia-based company spun off from Macquarie University in mid-2005, has released figures suggesting that its remote plasma (RP) CVD process for low-temperature deposition of GaN onto glass substrates (rather than conventional MOCVD on sapphire) can cut the cost of manufacturing GaN-based LEDs at both the epiwafer level and the assembled device level.

Independent assessment was carried out by US-based firm Wright, Williams & Kelly Inc (WWK), a cost -of-ownership modeling group for the semiconductor industry.

Wafer-level analysis showed a cost saving of 48% for RPCVD, driven by a significant reduction in materials and consumables costs. Also, in a simple package, the assessment showed that the RPCVD process leads to a 10% cost advantage at the final assembly level for a simple blue LED device.

BluGlass has demonstrated deposition of GaN on 6-inch glass wafers, although the company has yet to demonstrate high quality emission from LED device layers on glass.