SemiLEDs focuses on curing

28 Feb 2012

Targeting its LEDs at UV curing applications could help to alleviate the continuing squeeze in the lighting sector.

SemiLEDs, the LED chip manufacturer based in Taiwan and listed on Wall Street, has announced the development of UV LED chips capable of emitting radiation at a wavelength of 390 to 420 nm with 40 percent external quantum efficiencies.

"We are proud to be able to advance the UV LED technology for the curing industry and to provide cost-effective solutions to our customers thanks to our proprietary MvpLED technology," said Chuong Tran, COO and President of SemiLEDs.

SemiLEDs' MvpLED manufacturing platform, or metal vertical photon LED, fabricates LEDs with a thinned n-GaN structure, said to enhance light output efficiency and maximize the vertical injection of current into the device's active layers. The design also assists in thermal management, through a the use of copper alloy rather than a sapphire or silicon base, maximizing the heat transfer rate from the junction to the LED package.

"We are the only company able to manufacture vertical LEDs on a metal alloy substrate in mass production and cost effectively," SemiLEDs' Camly Doan told optics.org.

Targeting curing applications could be a welcome strategy for the company, as SemiLEDs, along with other LED developers, has been feeling the effects of strong pricing pressures in the lighting sector. "Our UV LED chips are used in many different applications, but curing is probably the largest market for UV LEDs," said Doan. "We believe our product will help provide a much needed alternative and solution to the curing market, and enable the adoption of LEDs."

• SemiLEDs raised $80 million in an IPO of stock in late 2010, but the bruising conditions of the LED market have led a drastic reduction in share price since then, and at one point the loss of some 80 percent of the total value of the company.

Its manufacturing facilities in China could help to ease the pressure, and the company hopes to benefit from the new support program for solid-state lighting in that country.