Plessey Semiconductors Ltd of Plymouth, UK has won the Solid-State Lighting Application Category of the Elektra Awards 2012 for its new MAGIC (Manufactured on GaN ICs) High Brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs).

The winners were announced at the European Electronics Industry Awards ceremony in London last week.

Plessey’s MAGIC HB-LEDs are manufactured on standard silicon substrates, rather than on sapphire or silicon carbide, using industry standard, high volume processing. The firm’s technology uses gallium nitride (GaN) on 6-inch silicon substrates. It uses a much thinner GaN layer at only 2.5µm compared to 6 to 8µm in other GaN on Si technologies. This means less deposition time, so that the firm can do multiple production cycles in 24 hours to achieve higher throughputs and lower costs.

"LEDs are the next key phase of the drive to reduce carbon usage but widespread adoption has been held back by the high product costs and the low level of the light output. Our MAGIC technology solves both these problems opening the way for LED lighting to become widespread and help cut energy bills. We have invested millions of pounds in our MAGIC manufacturing lines in Plymouth that are ramping up to volume production this year," said Barry Dennington, Plessey's COO.

For its next generation products, Plessey intends to integrate its MAGIC HB-LED products with its range of sensor and power technologies to provide smart lighting solutions.