Tegal Corporation (NASDAQ:TGAL), a leading designer and manufacturer of plasma etch and deposition systems used in the production of LEDs, MEMS, integrated circuits, and nanotechnology devices, announced today that it received another follow-on order for an additional Tegal 901ACS unit from a leading opto-semiconductor / LED manufacturer. The new 901ACS system will support the customer's capacity expansion for lighting and optical sensor device production, and adds to the customer's existing installed base of Tegal 900ACS Series plasma etch systems now being used for these applications.
"Our customer understands completely that the Tegal 900ACS tool, with its single-wafer etch configuration, brings improved manufacturing precision to the task of fabricating LEDs," said John Almerico, Marketing Director, Etch Products, Tegal Corporation. "Improved manufacturing precision translates as better process reproducibility, better manufacturing reproducibility, higher device yields, and lower operating costs for the plasma etch applications in our customer's fabs. That's an unbeatable value proposition, into which our customer has readily, and repeatedly, bought."
The Tegal 901ACS is the latest in a series of capacitively coupled diode plasma etch systems produced by Tegal, the industry pioneer in commercial single-wafer plasma etching. Over 1,500 systems in the 900 Series have been shipped to date, providing reliable and cost-effective support for a wide range of plasma etch processes. The Tegal 900ACS Series is optimized for pad, zero layer, non-selective nitride, backside, and planarization etching, as well as for photoresist descum, oxide, nitride, poly, and compound materials applications for HB-LED, Optoelectronic, TFH, and MEMS device fabrication. Among their other features, the Tegal 900ACS and 980ACS Series platforms incorporate a production-proven transport system that can robustly accommodate the 75 mm to 200 mm round, square or rectangular substrates found in the opto, TFH, and MEMS markets.
According to the LED market research firm Strategies Unlimited, HB LEDs are being increasingly deployed in such high-visibility applications as display backlighting for mobile appliances and notebook computers, for signals, indicators, and exterior and interior illumination in the automotive market, and in lighting for signs and displays. The LED lighting market is projected by Strategies Unlimited to grow at double-digit rates from today through early in the next decade, as LEDs become more and more ubiquitous in industrial and consumer illumination applications.