The price of 6″ sapphire wafers has to drop down.
Compound semiconductor published an article that continues the thread started in our earlier entries. In this article, we found answers to some of our questions.
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May 5, 2009
…despite the joint effort’s promising results and significant yield benefits, SemiLEDs does not currently have any plans to upgrade its Taiwan production lines to the larger format.
“We are in an R&D phase and will not plan for production until we can secure low-cost 6-inch sapphire,” said Chuong Tran, president and chief operating officer of SemiLEDs.”
Another interesting point mentioned by Chuong Tran is the possibility of sapphire substrate recycling.
” As SemiLEDs’ production process involves removing the sapphire layer and replacing it with a copper substrate, Tran suggests that his company could recycle substrates to help solve this issue.”