Thermal Technology, a leading manufacturer of crystal growth equipment and high temperature furnace systems, recently shipped 14 K1 HB LED-grade sapphire crystal growers to a customer in Europe.  The K1’s large 90kg sapphire boule is optimized for 4” and 6” cores used in LED production, with 8” cores possible.   “We continue to strengthen our position in the high brightness LED market,” says Matt Mede, Thermal Technology president and CEO.  “Spending time at customers’ facilities throughout the world, I see our competitors sapphire tools unplugged and pushed aside, while ours are in production. The K1’s quality output speaks for itself.”   As Thermal Technology completes sapphire growth protocol transfer at its customers’ facilities, K1 sapphire production has increased dramatically with customers producing large, high quality boules and reporting yields of 4200mm TIE.   Over recent decades, LED lighting technology has developed and commercialized to the point that LEDs are replacing incandescent light bulbs in common lighting applications. Refined LED technology has led to the development of high brightness LEDs (HB LED) used in electronic display backlighting and other high tech applications.  Producing HB LED requires higher quality, single sapphire substrate.   Thermal Technology’s Model K1 crystal grower is intended for HB LED substrate production. To satisfy the demand of the growing high quality sapphire market, Thermal Technology has successfully tripled their Santa Rosa, California manufacturing facility. Thermal Technology is a global manufacturer of advance thermal processing systems, including crystal growth equipment, high temperature laboratory and production furnaces, hot presses and spark plasma as well as direct current sintering systems. Thermal Technology has 60 years of experience with more than 3000 installations in 40 countries.