BluGlass Ltd of Silverwater, Australia – which was spun off from the III-nitride department of Macquarie University in 2005 – says that it is making progress on key projects critical to commercializing its remote-plasma chemical vapor deposition (RPCVD) technology for the LED and power electronics markets.
Scaling project and BLG-300 upgrade – enabling uniform RPCVD deposition over larger areas
As reported in February, the upgraded chamber of the smaller RPCVD system (the BLG-180) has brought deposition uniformity to a suitable level that meets industry demonstration requirements. BluGlass says that this is a step towards the scalability milestones required for commercializing RPCVD. This RPCVD chamber design has been applied to the design and manufacture of the upgraded BLG-300 chamber, which is on site and will be installed in the coming weeks. The BLG-300 upgrade had been paused to allow progress on the collaborations with LED maker Lumileds of San Jose, CA, USA and epiwafer foundry & substrate maker IQE plc of Cardiff, Wales, UK.
“The scaling project milestones are critical to the commercialization of RPCVD,” says managing director Giles Bourne. “Despite progress on our industry collaborations, BluGlass will now move forward immediately with the scaling project, and implement the new BLG-300 chamber. During this time, the BLG-180 will become the main workhorse to continue development,” he adds. “Completion of the BLG-300 upgrade is required to support the positive completion of our numerous industry evaluations, and enable us to further discussions on the competitive advantages of RPCVD with other potential customers and collaborators. Therefore, this has become a priority for the company.”
Industry collaborations – delivering industry acceptance of RPCVD
BluGlass says that progress is being made on both the Lumileds Phase II milestones and the IQE deliverables. The firm is working with Lumileds to develop a new implementation of LEDs and with IQE to develop specific enabling technology for high-quality nitride films on silicon and rare earth oxide (cREO) on silicon substrates. Both collaborations aim to capitalize on the benefits of low-temperature RPCVD.
Technology team expanded
To better enable its growing commercialization activity, BluGlass has expanded its technology team by adding two process engineers. Joining the engineering staff, they will assist in the further design and optimization of RPCVD, device design and characterization, and deliver custom epitaxy services.