On December 15, French 3D GaN LED technology developer Aledia announced that it had successfully grown the industry's first nanowire Micro LED chip on a 12-inch (300mm) silicon wafer.
In 2012, Aledia was spun off from the CEA-Leti laboratory, a leading research institution in French Micro and nanotechnology. The technological breakthrough on 12-inch wafers was the result of the cooperation between the two teams.
Over the past 8 years, Aledia has been committed to developing its breakthrough technology on 8-inch (200mm) silicon wafers. Today, 12-inch silicon wafers have also made technological breakthroughs, which means that Aledia will be in the future in 8-inch and 12-inch silicon wafers. Growing chips on silicon wafers provides different solutions.
It is understood that large-size wafers can bring better economic returns, and integration with smaller-node electronic devices can be more cost-effective. Currently, only 12-inch silicon wafers can be achieved.
Giorgio Anania, CEO and co-founder of Aledia, bluntly stated that Aledia is the first company in the world to produce Micro LEDs on 12-inch silicon wafers and has opened up its potential for mass production.
According to his introduction, 60-100 smart phone displays can be produced on a 12-inch silicon wafer. If the current LED industry standard 4-inch sapphire substrate is used for production, about 4-6 pieces are needed.
Aledia said that based on unique nanowire LED (3D LED) technology and the application of silicon wafers with a standard thickness of 780μm, 60-100 smart phone displays can be produced on a 12-inch silicon wafer. Process and equipment realization.
Traditional flat 2D Micro LEDs are produced by depositing a flat layer of GaN crystals on 4-6 inches (100-150nm) sapphire wafers. Currently, 4-inch wafers are widely used in the industry.
In contrast, Aledia’s Micro LED technology is to grow GaN nanowires (sub-micron diameter GaN crystals) on a larger area of silicon wafer, which will not cause any stress problems that appear on 2D chips, and the stress will increase with The increase in wafer size is enhanced, so super-large wafers come in handy.
In addition, the use of silicon-based technology can also produce Micro LEDs in traditional microelectronics factories (silicon wafer foundries) to help them achieve mass production with a very high yield rate.
Aledia believes that large-size silicon wafers and microelectronics factories are the only way to meet the strong demand of the end-user market right now. For example, if a large-screen TV of 60 inches or more uses silicon nanotechnology to obtain better image quality and reduce production costs, then 24 million 12-inch silicon wafers will be needed each year, and this is only the silicon industry and its The supply chain can be realized.
CEA-Leti Lab said that 3D nanowire Micro LED has the potential to penetrate the large-size display market. CEA-Leti is actively supporting and promoting the transition of the display industry to Micro LED technology.
Since the beginning of this year, Aledia has continued to increase its research and development efforts on Micro LED technology, making big moves frequently.
On the one hand, Aledia has completed an investment of 80 million euros and plans to invest 140 million euros in France to establish an LED production plant. The company expects to start producing LEDs at the new factory by 2022, will also complete its micro-display production process, and will begin to provide Micro LED micro-displays.
On the other hand, in terms of investment in key equipment, Aledia purchased Veeco's thin film process equipment to speed up the development and production of 3D Micro LEDs.
Based on the collaboration between important manufacturers in the industry chain, Aledia`s Micro LED technology has made substantial progress, and its business scale is also expanding simultaneously. In the future, it will also be an important force to promote the commercialization of Micro LED.