Rubicon transcends LED industry with innovative 12-inch sapphire wafers

FRANKLIN PARK, USA: Rubicon Technology Inc., a leading provider of sapphire substrates and products to the LED, RFIC, Semiconductor, and Optical industries, announced the production of 12-inch polished wafers, the largest high-quality, sapphire wafer ready for production of LEDs (light emitting diodes).

Rubicon now offers a complete range of high quality sapphire substrates including two-, three- and four-inch core, and six-, eight- and 12-inch wafers.

Rubicon is uniquely positioned to deliver the sapphire capacity necessary to support the growing demand for LEDs in the consumer electronics and general lighting industries in products such as light bulbs, large displays, traffic lights, HDTVs, tablets, netbooks, and mobile phones leverage LEDs. As the only vertically integrated manufacturer of high quality, large diameter sapphire wafers in large volumes, Rubicon is provider of choice for manufacturers of LEDs worldwide.

“Rubicon has built a world renowned R&D and engineering team that is making great strides in the development of high quality large diameter sapphire including the first 12-inch wafer,” said Raja Parvez, Rubicon president and CEO.

“It takes unique technology with advanced processes to make high quality, large diameter sapphire at scale. Rubicon’s ability to affordably produce larger wafers, free of defects is key to helping industries that make and use LEDs scale to the volumes necessary to support the growth needed in the general lighting and consumer electronics.“

Founded in 2000, Rubicon sought after experts in sapphire crystal formation and processing, and the optoelectronics and semiconductor industries from around the world to redefine the end-to-end process for the manufacture of sapphire wafers.

“The Rubicon team has built a highly specialized end-to-end process to ensure the high quality of our full range of wafer products,” commented Parvez. “It is very important to ensure that our customers can depend on us for uniform, particulate-free sapphire wafers as well as flat, stress-free wafers. High quality sapphire wafers help our customers produce high quality LED wafers at volumes supporting the LED supply chain.”

Rubicon’s recent build-out of infrastructure optimizes the company’s ability to make affordable, high quality, large diameter sapphire wafers in large volumes for customers worldwide. While the Batavia facility leverages the stability and lower cost of valuable resources such as power, the new facility in Malaysia leverages the location to further lower costs and bring extensive experience in polishing large diameter wafers closer to the LED, consumer electronics and general lighting manufacturers in Asia.

The transition to larger diameter wafers in LED production has started. Earlier in 2010, Rubicon announced that the company entered into a $71 million agreement with a major LED chip manufacturer for which Rubicon will provide six-inch polished substrates. Companies such as Philips Lumiled and Lextar Electronics have announced six-inch production of LED wafers built on sapphire.