IQE gets first mass production order at Newport Mega Foundry

(Sharecast News) - IQE announced on Thursday that its recently-constructed Newport Mega Foundry has received its first mass production order from its existing leading vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) customer.The AIM-traded semiconductor company said the achievement of full product qualification status was the result of "extensive" quality and process audits by the customer and their end OEM, as well as "exhaustive" product qualification trials including full reliability testing.Qualification of further tools was in progress, and was expected to complete over the coming months.In addition to the qualification with the unnamed customer, further VCSEL product qualifications were said to be at "advanced" stages with more than 10 other customers - two of which were expected to reach a successful conclusion over the next few weeks.Customer feedback from the additional qualifications confirmed the superior quality and performance from the new facility, IQE claimed.It described the Newport Mega Foundry as the largest outsource 'epi' facility for advanced compound semiconductors globally, and had been under construction for the last 18 months.The facility currently had 10 large-scale production metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) tools installed, with space for up to an additional 90 tools.IQE said the manufacturing facility also housed an "extensive" suite of "highly advanced" wafer characterisation tools to ensure outstanding, world-class wafer quality.The first 10 tools were dedicated to six-inch VCSEL production for end applications that included 3D sensing, high-speed datacoms, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), LiDAR, proximity sensing and time-of-flight (ToF) systems.It said the order and commencement of production was in line with its previously-provided revenue guidance for 2019."I am very pleased to announce IQE's receipt of full product qualification status from our leading VCSEL customer, and the first order for mass production from our new Mega Epi foundry in Newport," said IQE chief executive officer Dr Drew Nelson."IQE has invested heavily, along with help from the Cardiff City Region Deal (CCR), to build the world's largest outsource epi facility, demonstrating our commitment to providing the capacity required for large scale deployment of VCSELs and other compound semiconductor (CS) products, as the CS industry moves through a real inflection point in volume manufacture."Dr Nelson said IQE was committed to leadership of sich mass CS scaling, offering a "unique" range of wafer products and complementary technologies, enabling customers to introduce disruptive products to the end marketplace."We have a powerful and extensive roadmap for VCSEL technology, which we believe will help the acceleration of the deployment of VCSELs across many end applications."