In an article at Optics.org, Rubicon Technology is listed as delivering news that they are having some shortfalls in selling the 2-inch LED wafers that they spent some time developing – and that they are now going to soon enter production on a 6-inch LED wafer. All of this news comes as Samsung is suspected of starting the manufacturing process on a 6-inch LED wafer.
Rubicon Technology, which is driving a shift to move to a 6-inch substrate wafer on the industry. 2-inch wafer technology has been a long-standing tradition in the LED industry, and breakthroughs are expected from a 6-inch substrate. Shortfalls in the sale of all of this technology have been affected by – yep, you guessed it, the crappy American economy right now. From the article:
The drop comes because the substrate maker has postponed nearly $7 million of orders back into 2009, $2.5 million relating to 2-inch LED substrates and $4.3 million for silicon-on-sapphire RF applications.
Parvez blames producers of LEDs for handheld devices and small displays — who he says are struggling in the current economic climate — for the shortfall. He says these companies exclusively use 2-inch substrates, whereas it seems the users of larger diameter substrates are aiming for market sectors with greater growth potential.
What the heck is LED wafer technology, you might ask? Well, there’s a PDF of some manufacturing processes here, and a page here, and one here. Read up – I did, as I was wondering what the article was talking about. It’s actually interesting stuff.
