Leading Taiwanese LED maker Epistar announced recently that the company had acquired German manufacturer ALLOS unique GaN-on-Si technology. ALLOS has licensed the related patent to Epistar, and the two companies have concluded the initial phase of its technology transfer project. For further information please see original press release below.

Leading LED maker Epistar Corporation, Taiwan and the engineering and consulting company ALLOS Semiconductors, Germany announced that Epistar licensed ALLOS’ unique gallium nitride on silicon (GaN-on-Si) technology and that the initial phases of the technology transfer project have already been concluded successfully.

The technology transfer project establishes ALLOS’ 150 mm and 200 mm GaN-on-Si epiwafer process with excellent homogeneities on Epistar’s epitaxy reactors. With full control gained over the GaN-on-Si technology during the project Epistar is then enabled to integrate it with its own leading LED technology. Through the know-how transfer and GaN-on-Si technology training of its engineers Epistar ensures it can pursue further developments independently. Additionally the use of GaN-on-Si epiwafers opens the opportunity to utilise silicon foundries for the processing of the epiwafers.

Epistar has made very good experience with the technology, based on so-called templates, which were supplied to it by AZZURRO Semiconductors in the past. Late last year the technology, know-how and intellectual property of former AZZURRO Semiconductors were acquired by ALLOS. It is now being made available along the existing consulting and customised development services of ALLOS.

Given the opportunity to secure the technology for internal use Epistar decided to move quickly. “Gaining full capability via a technology transfer in a very short period is a time and cost effective way to move ahead.“ says Dr. M. J. Jou, President of Epistar Corporation, and comments further on the strategy of his company: “GaN-on-Si remains interesting for Epistar as there are advantages in a number of applications and the cost benefits of larger wafer sizes.”

“Our combined licensing and technology transfer packages allow customers in both the LED and power semiconductor industry to kick-start their own GaN-on-Si programs successfully. This lets them achieve state-of-the-art results in months instead of trying to catch-up with the pioneers who are years and multi-million dollars of development spending ahead.” observes Dr. Atsushi Nishikawa, CTO and Co-founder of ALLOS who sees that for ALLOS’ customers the opportunity is to reduce not only cost and time-to-market but also the development and intellectual property risk by building their effort on ALLOS’ proven GaN-on-Si platform and know-how.