AIXTRON AG today announced
that in the fourth quarter the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications,
Heinrich-Hertz-Institut (HHI), Berlin, Germany, ordered one AIX 2600G3 IC MOCVD
system for the multi-wafer growth of Indium Phosphide (InP) based optoelectronic
devices. The MOCVD tool will be delivered in a 8x4 inch wafer configuration
and be shipped in the third quarter of 2009. The tool will be an essential contribution
to further developing the capabilities of the institute's Photonic Components
department.
Norbert Grote, department head of the photonic component department, says:
“The strong growth of phase dependent information transmission, together
with the demand for WDM optochip solutions at reasonable costs, creates a huge
need for photonic integrated circuits. We believe that soon more than 50% of
HHI’s wafer area will be some kind of integrated solution. We are confident
that the ordered AIX 2600G3 IC system will upgrade our MOCVD capabilities to
a level sufficient for many years to come.”
Harald Kuenzel, leader of HHI’s epitaxy group, comments: “We have
been doing InP photonics development for more than two decades. Our primary
research tools have been the AIX 200 and AIX 200/4 horizontal MOVPE reactors
which so far have fulfilled our requirements. Now our program has reached the
point where we need to expand our epi capacity and upgrade to the latest technology
in terms of area uniformity and multi-wafer capability. Our industrial customers
are more and more keen on seeing R&D device developments to be compliant
with state-of-the art production tools. After reviewing all available options
we will once again acquire the best MOCVD tool suited for our needs from AIXTRON.
It has been our experience that these systems provide excellent reproducibility
and uniformity plus a flexibility of configuration that will allow us to rapidly
achieve high device quality.”
At HHI, research on photonic components covers both telecom & datacom applications
and optical sensors and instrumentation e.g. for medical and environmental monitoring.
This involves MOCVD growth of laser diode, detector and modulator structures
in the 1200 nm to 1900 nm spectral range. The new AIXTRON reactor will be used
for bulk-InGaAsP-, QW-InGaAsP-, QW-InGaAlAs-, and also self-assembled InAs quantum
dot based structures.