It’s reported that Raja Parvez, CEO of Rubicon Technology, Inc., a leading provider of sapphire substrates and products, discussed the importance of the shift in the LED industry to larger diameter sapphire substrates in order to speed adoption of LEDs into high volume, high performance, green applications such as commercial lighting and large area display backlighting units.
Sapphire has a key role to play in the LED value-chain as consumers and businesses around the world turn to green technologies to save money and energy. Mr. Parvez, said. "Moving to larger diameter LED wafer production utilizing 4", 6" and even 8" sapphire substrates will significantly reduce the overall cost of LED chips and also enable performance improvements for LED lamps. This will greatly increase adoption of high performance LEDs into large area displays such as LCD televisions and help make white LEDs affordable enough to replace traditional incandescent and fluorescent lighting technologies."
Rubicon already has high volume production capability at 4", 6" and 8" substrates for use in the LED industry. The Company's proprietary crystal growth technology provides the platform for Rubicon to continue to expand the diameter of sapphire wafers while maintaining unparalleled quality crystal. The combination of larger diameter wafers, high quality, and high volume production capacity allows Rubicon to offer cost effective sapphire products necessary to drive large diameter LED wafer production.
Parvez pointed out that the stage is set for the marketplace, both front-end and back-end LED production equipment and processes are ready for high volume production of larger LED substrates and that up to 8" sapphire wafers are available now as well. They expect 4 inch LED production to reach high volumes in 2009 with 6 inch substrate production rapidly increasing in 2010.
About Rubicon
Rubicon Technology, Inc. is an advanced electronic materials provider that is engaged in developing, manufacturing and selling monocrystalline sapphire and other crystalline products for LEDs, radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs), blue laser diodes, optoelectronics and other optical applications. The Company applies its proprietary crystal growth technology to produce very high-quality sapphire in a form that allows for volume production of various sizes and orientations of substrates and windows. Rubicon is a vertically-integrated manufacturer with capabilities in crystal growth, high precision core drilling, wafer slicing, surface lapping, large-diameter polishing and wafer cleaning processes, which the Company employs to convert the bulk crystal into products with the quality and precision specified by its customers. The Company is actively developing larger diameter products to support next-generation LED, RFIC and optical window applications.
