According to a white paper entitled "LED Manufacturing Study on CHES™ Sapphire," ARC Energy has released results of a study showing that sapphire grown from its proprietary CHES technology yield 5% greater LED brightness than the industry standard.
The study purposefully included sapphire material exhibiting a wide range of etch pit distortion (EPD) levels to determine whether or not EPD affects LED manufacturing. The study took sapphire through the complete LED chip manufacturing process and concluded that all material passed LED standards and that no correlation was found between LED performance and EPD level of CHES wafers.
"We are pleased to see CHES achieving significantly higher LED brightness which translates to higher profits for our customers," said Dr. Rick Schwerdtfeger, co-founder and chief technology officer for ARC Energy. "CHES is rapidly establishing itself as the technology of choice for the future of HB-LED production."
ARC's study is the first subject in a new series called "CHES Foundations", which explains how CHES technology and CHES furnaces are enabling sapphire growth companies to meet increasing demand. Several ARC customers have already announced that their CHES sapphire has been qualified by multiple LED manufacturers.
ARC Energy's CHES furnaces are unique in several ways. One key advantage is dramatically higher material utilization due to sapphire growth on the c-plane. This approach produces large diameter substrates at a significantly lower cost. Greater than 75% material utilization can be achieved using c-plane ARC Energy CHES furnaces while other methods are limited to less than 35%. CHES furnaces are also highly automated—a key feature which brings operator costs down and provides consistent output.
CHES furnaces are designed to produce higher performance sapphire at larger wafer sizes compared to older technologies. A CHES furnace produces high-yield sapphire up to 10" diameter, providing higher efficiency downstream in the LED manufacturing process and upstream as c-plane growth significantly reduces waste.
The study results show CHES-grown sapphire is capable of production-level performance. As the HB-LED market expands, CHES gives sapphire growers significant advantages, including higher yield, a scalable technology, and better LED chip performance. ARC Energy offers CHES furnaces and a variety of support services for crystal growth companies seeking to lead in the HB-LED industry.
