News: Suppliers
30 March 2021
Aixtron’s AIX G5+ C MOCVD system selected for micro-LED production
Deposition equipment maker Aixtron SE of Herzogenrath, near Aachen, Germany says that it has supplied a tier-1 US LED maker with an AIX G5+ C metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) system, developed and qualified for meeting the tighter requirements of micro-LED manufacturing.
The next generation of LED displays requires millions of micron-size LEDs to be transferred onto a single display, which has compelled LED suppliers to develop new mass transfer technologies, notes Aixtron. To enable this, large arrays of LEDs are taken directly from the processed LED wafers, preventing any upfront wafer binning or sorting of defective chips. As a consequence, it is essential that all epitaxial wafers produced have a very tight wavelength distribution and a very low level of defects on their surfaces, calling for innovative and new MOCVD approaches, adds the firm.
Aixtron’s AIX G5+ C system hence uses wafer-level control (based on Auto-Feed Forward) of the film surface temperature during the epitaxial process in combination with ultraviolet (UV) pyrometry. This allows very accurate control of indium incorporation into the multi-quantum wells (MQW), which ultimately defines the wavelength consistency among the wafers produced. A cassette-to-cassette transfer module, coupled with in-situ cleaning, then helps to ensure that no particles contaminate the films during handling or the epitaxy process.
“We are looking forward to further accelerate the roll out of micro-LEDs for displays,” says president Dr Bernd Schulte. “Micro-LED technology is disrupting the existing LED eco-system, embracing methods and approaches seen to date only in the LCD or semiconductor industry, and our AIX G5+ C platform perfectly backs these stringent epitaxial requirements,” he adds.
“Micro-LED technology is a game changer for the display industry, outperforming existing liquid-crystal displays (LCD) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technologies on power consumption while exhibiting superior pixel density, contrast ratio and brightness,” comments senior product marketing manager Arthur Beckers. “It will open new horizons for consumer mobile products as well as premium television displays.”
