iLED iLED, October issue : 11
ISSUE N°2 OCT OBER 2011 our multibeam systems can be seen.” The rise of such alternative processes LEDs has come just in time for A.L.S.I.. Like most other LED equipment companies, it is coming to terms with an investment cycle driven to excess by Chinese companies exploiting government subsidies that peaked last year and aggressive expansion of manufacturers in Korea. “We have seen clearly that the LED industry has overcapacity installed and that has an impact,” Hendriks said. “GaN-on-sapphire, a well-established product where the main dicing solutions are scribing and stealth dicing, has dried up because there was an overcapacity installed. The current main activity that we can see growth in is the implementation of laser dicing for metal substrate technologies. That's where we still see a strong demand going on.” www.alsi-international.com Cassette player: A.L.S.I.'s ICA 1204 laser dicing system, designed for cassette to cassette operation, optimal performance for small dies, enabling smaller lanes and shorter dicing time. (Courtesy of A.L.S.I.) metal foils to the remaining GaN epilayers. “Silicon, copper, and all kind of other metals are being used to replace sapphire for better heat dissipation or light emission,” Hendriks said. For LEDs to be manufactured ef fi ciently with this approach, laser dicing is a must-have, the executive added. “If you have bonded wafers, you cannot dice them with a blade. You will tear the metal apart, and that will result in signi fi cant yield loss.” In fact, Hendriks said that this has been part of a surprisingly high level of novel manufacturing processes emerging over the past year needing optimised laser dicing. He added that A.L.S.I. has also helped manufacturers handle “sandwiches” of different materials. “Typically you have warped wafers, because of the mismatches in thermal expansion,” the executive said. “The sandwiches behave in an unde fi ned way when you dice them with a standard laser. That's where we have to optimise the process, and where the advantage of Lane narrows: the relative yield bene fi t gained by reducing the amount of kerf lost through laser dicing increases as dice get smaller. (Courtesy of A.L.S.I.) Rene Hendriks, Director of commerce, Advanced Laser Separation International (A.L.S.I.), joined A.L.S.I. in 2003. He received his engineering and manufacturing engineering degree from HAN University Arnhem, the Netherlands and fi nished several MBA modules at business school INSEAD Fontainebleau, France. He has more than 20 years experience in the semiconductor manufacturing equipment industry and worldwide sales and marketing. 11 i LED
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