2 May 2012

Trinity Material qualifies ARC Energy's CHES sapphire at LED chip makers

ARC Energy of Nashua, NH, USA, which was founded in 2007 to provide sapphire crystal growth technologies and turnkey processing solutions for the LED solid-state lighting and other clean-energy markets, says that sapphire grown using ARC Energy’s Controlled Heat Extraction System (CHES) furnaces has been certified for production at two leading LED chip companies. Trinity Material Co Ltd of Jurong City, Jiangsu, China, which specializes in the production of LED-grade sapphire substrate material (2-8” boules and ingots), is partnering with ARC Energy to use its CHES furnaces.

Sapphire boules are grown on c-axis by ARC Energy's CHES method, compared with conventional processes where a-axis boules are grown and c-axis wafers are extracted. “LED chip qualification results prove that CHES wafers perform as well as, or better than sapphire grown by the a-axis growth process, without any color problems at the boule or wafer levels,” says Trinity Material’s chief operating officer Champion Yi. “LED chips manufactured on CHES wafers show a significant increase in light output when compared to devices grown using wafers from conventional a-axis-grown boules,” he claims.

Trinity Material and ARC Energy reckon that they are paving the way for new industry opportunities based on c-axis growth orientation for LED manufacturing. Trinity is ramping up to produce very high volumes of sapphire crystals to meet the growing demand for large-diameter sapphire wafers in the LED market

“We look forward to continuing our strong relationship with ARC Energy, and to utilizing ARC Energy’s leading edge CHES furnaces and our strong production capabilities to ramp up production to high volumes,” says Trinity Material’s CEO Jamin Sheng.

ARC Energy says that its proprietary and fully automated CHES technology produces c-axis boules that are the optimum orientation for LED applications and, when compared with conventional a-axis technologies, lead to higher material utilization and lower overall costs for large-diameter sapphire production.

“Our unique and flexible c-axis CHES furnaces allow Trinity Material to serve the rapidly expanding demand for large-diameter sapphire substrates, ranging from 4 inches to 8 inches,” says ARC Energy’s co-founder & chief technology officer Dr Rick Schwerdtfeger.

Tags: ARC Energy Sapphire crystallization furnaces

Visit: www.arc-energy.com

Visit: www.trinity-material.com