What They Say
Hat-tip to Sixteen-Nine.net for an update on Stratache and its ambitions in microLED. The firm has said that it plans to build a complete fab from epi deposition on 300mm silicon wafers and right through to final module assembly at a factory previously used by Hynix. Quoting data from microled-info, the blog said that the fab has 120K sq. ft. (11,000 m²) of Class 1 clean rooms and 400K sq. ft (37,100 m²) of Class-1 to Class-1000 clean rooms. The microLEDs will be made using GaN-on-Silicon technology.
The fab, in Eugene, Oregon, was bought at auction last year for $6.3 million, although it has been closed since 2008. (What Bob Saw on the Net 03/04/2020). In 2017, Corning bought the plant, although it said at the time that it had no specific plan for its use. A chip maker, Avago (later Broadcomm), paid $15 million for it in 2015.
What We Think
Chris Riegel, who is CEO of Stratacache, sees microLED as a genuinely disruptive technology and he may be right (Will MicroLED Be Disruptive? – an Hour of Power!). Stratacache has a strong vertical business in digital signage, but it will be a challenge, I think, to combine this with this kind of component business. Still, it’s good to see a US company make a serious attempt to get the country back into the display device manufacturing business. (BR)
Image: Auction.com
