Kyma Technologies, Inc., a leading supplier of crystalline aluminum nitride (AlN) and gallium nitride (GaN) materials and related products and services, is pleased to announce the successful demonstration of a 10-inch diameter aluminum nitride (AlN) on sapphire template.

Kyma’s AlN templates are manufactured using its patented plasma vapor deposition of nanocolumns (PVDNC) technology, which provides GaN LED manufacturers with throughput, cost, and performance benefits. Light emitting diode (LED) manufacturers choose Kyma’s PVDNC AlN templates as a replacement for bare and patterned sapphire substrates by manufacturers of blue, green, and white light emitting diodes (LEDs).

The 250-mm (10-inch) diameter sapphire substrate was provided courtesy of Monocrystal, of Stavropol, Russia.

Until recently, the wafer diameter standard for GaN LED wafer manufacturing has been 50mm (2”). Recently, sapphire manufacturers have made much progress in increasing the size of sapphire boules from which ever larger sapphire substrates can be sliced, with sapphire diameter demonstrations up to 12” being achieved by certain sapphire providers. This has enabled some of the major GaN LED manufacturers to begin transitioning to larger diameter sapphire, up to 150-mm (6-inch) in some cases, to enhance manufacturing throughput and to achieve better economies of scale. While 10-inch sapphire based AlN templates are simply a demonstration today, Kyma believes the LED community will begin looking beyond 150mm (6-inch) diameter in the next few years.

In February 2011 Kyma announced the successful commissioning of its new high volume PVDNC AlN template manufacturing tool and the demonstration of the world’s first 300mm (12-inch) diameter AlN on silicon template that is suitable for high quality gallium nitride (GaN) growth. In November 2011, Kyma announced successful customer qualification of products manufactured on that same tool.

“Over the past year we have demonstrated several firsts in AlN template manufacturing, in each case leveraging Kyma’s new volume manufacturing tool, including customer qualification of our 2” sapphire based product and large diameter demonstrations on both silicon and sapphire,” said Ed Preble, Kyma’s Chief Technology Officer. “Together these results confirm the diameter scalability of the PVDNC AlN process as well as its robustness and flexibility for growth on different starting substrates".