Veeco Instruments Inc. (Nasdaq:VECO) announced today that it has shipped the 50th TurboDisc® EPIK™700 GaN Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) System reactor since its introduction ten months ago.

After its launch in September 2014, the award-winning EPIK 700 MOCVD system has now been installed, qualified and accepted at multiple LED manufacturers in several key regions around the world. According to recent customer feedback, the TurboDisc EPIK 700 MOCVD system has delivered increased LED wafer production with best-in-class uniformity and easy process transfer between systems saving both time and money.

“Veeco’s EPIK 700 system was designed to facilitate the acceleration of general lighting by combining the LED industry’s lowest cost of ownership with its most technologically advanced reactor,” said John Peeler, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Veeco. “These innovations have allowed EPIK 700 customers to better satisfy the demand for solid state lighting in existing and emerging applications, particularly in the area of general lighting.”

The EPIK 700 is Veeco’s latest system in a distinguished line of technologically advanced MOCVD reactors. Since the introduction of the TurboDisc K465i™ GaN MOCVD System in 2010, Veeco has steadily increased its market share becoming the global leader in MOCVD thin film process equipment. In 2011, Veeco introduced the industry’s first multi-reactor MOCVD system, the award-winning TurboDisc MaxBright™ GaN Multi-Reactor MOCVD System.

“The EPIK 700 system features the advanced TurboDisc reactor design with more than twice the capacity of Veeco’s K465i reactor, which translates to higher throughput efficiency to conserve expensive fab floor space,” said Jim Jenson, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Veeco MOCVD. “Fifty EPIK 700 reactors are the equivalent to more than 100 Veeco K465i MOCVD reactors. This increased capacity, improved wafer uniformity and reduced operating expenses, enable LED customers to achieve a cost per wafer savings of 20 to 40 percent over previous MOCVD systems.”

In March, the EPIK 700 GaN MOCVD System won the 2015 Compound Semiconductor Industry Award for Innovation voted on by peers for its innovative and game-changing contributions to the compound semiconductor industry. Veeco has won the award three times in four years for its technology breakthroughs.