Tower to make Aledia nanowire LEDs
Aledia SA (Grenoble, France) was founded in 2011 to capitalize on a previous six years of research at the Leti research institute in the creation of 3D GaN-on-silicon nanowire LEDs. Aledia’s technology uses millions of sub-micron diameter light-emitting GaN pillars standing up from the silicon surface to obtain an improved area efficiency of light generation. The technique produces three times more light per square millimeter of planar area, Aledia has stated. Aledia has been developing LEDs that are manufactured on 200mm-diameter wafers, scalable to 300mm wafers and targeted at mobile display applications.
Tower Semiconductor Ltd. (Migdal Haemek, Israel), which trades as TowerJazz, is offering its process development service, known as TOPS (Transfer Optimization and Development Process Services), to bring Aledia’s technology into commercialized volume production. Tower is able to offer manufacture on both 200mm- and 300mm-diameter wafers at its multiple wafer fabs.
Aledia’s 3D LED could find application in laptops, tablets, mobile phones, augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR), and smart watches among other equipment.
“Bringing Aledia’s solutions into volume production is a major step in establishing its role as a leading provider of next-generation display panel technology and we have great confidence in their success,” said Dani Ashkenazi, general manager of TOPS business at Tower.
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