BluGlass to produce advanced materials at commercial scale with commissioning of RPCVD platform
BluGlass’ RPCVD technology grows advanced materials crucial to next generation devices including lighting, displays, virtual reality and industrial cutting and welding.
Semiconductor technology developer BluGlass (ASX: BLG) has commissioned a commercial scale remote plasma chemical vapour deposition (RPCVD) manufacturing platform, which is its largest ever RPCVD to-date.
The company has now commissioned the BLG-500 which was retrofitted onto a modern generation manufacturing platform known as the AIXTRON 2800 G4.
It was completed in collaboration with global semiconductor leader AIXTRON SE and is now has several times the capacity of the previous RPCVD platform – the BLG-300.
The new planetary deposition platform is capable of 6×6-inch wafer deposition or 42×2” wafers.
RPCVD technology
According to BluGlass, it has invented a new process using RPCVD to grow advanced materials such as gallium nitride and indium gallium nitride, which are crucial in the next generation devices including lighting, displays, virtual reality systems and industrial cutting and welding.
The RPCVD platform’s low temperature and low hydrogen growth offers benefits to electronics manufacturers over existing growth techniques.
BluGlass claims some of these advantages are higher efficiency, lower cost, greater substrate flexibility and to potential to facilitate novel applications.
Commercial milestone
“The BLG-500 is the culmination of an enormous two-year design and build to transform our unique R&D scale technology to one with commercial manufacturing capability,” BluGlass managing director Giles Bourne explained.
“This step is critical to the future success of the company.”
“The BLG-500 is not an incremental next generation of our RPCVD platform, it is, instead, a radically re-engineered design to deliver ultra-precision uniformity and deposition quality at commercial scale.”
He added that the commissioning of BLG-500 was a “significant technology demonstration milestone” for the company in the commercialisation of its low-temperature growth platform.
It is expected the new platform will “significantly increase” the company’s foundry customer output capacity at its existing manufacturing facility.
Prior to BLG-500 contributing to the product development of laser diodes and LEDs, BluGlass will continue with performance testing and optimisation.