20 January 2011

CSTG ships millionth laser from Hamilton fab

Compound Semiconductor Technologies Global Ltd (CSTG) says that it has passed the milestone of delivering 1 million laser diodes from its wafer fabrication plant in Hamilton Technology Park (near Glasgow), Scotland, UK, following full qualification of the facility at the end of September.

CSTG was formed in 1999 by the universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow (together with Scottish Enterprise) as a ‘pure play’ foundry supplier specializing in the design, development and manufacture of discrete and integrated III-V optoelectronic wafers and chips with clients in the communications, defense, medical, energy and instrumentation markets.

The Hamilton facility was acquired in January 2010 from Intense Photonics Ltd (a manufacturer of makes single- and multi-mode monolithic laser array products and high-power laser diodes) and is now engaged in making a wide range of gallium arsenide (GaAs) and indium phosphide (InP) foundry products, including high-power 650–1600nm lasers, 1310–1550nm single-mode lasers and gain elements, semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs), super-luminescent LEDs (SLEDs), quantum cascade lasers (QCLs), indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) detectors and custom monolithic chip solutions.

“Since full qualification of all foundry product lines in September, we have been focussed on ramping capacity to fulfil demand, particularly in industrial and telecoms applications,” says CEO Neil Martin. “We are now engaged in expanding the capacity to deliver 1 million devices per month, which would position us as a leading European manufacturer of semiconductor laser sources,” he adds. “In addition, we are aggressively expanding the portfolio of foundry processes and device technologies to capitalise on explosive growth in compound semiconductor applications.”

Tags: Compound Semiconductor Technologies Global Ltd Laser diodes GaAs InP

Visit: www.compoundsemi.co.uk