Philips Reports Lumileds' Impressive Financial Performance for FY '04
Jo Ann McDonald, Founding EditorDecember 23, 2004...One of the parent companies of Lumileds Lighting, Philips (the other being
Agilent) has broken precedence and reported the financial performance of its
offspring, and that performance was impressive. For the 2004 fiscal year that
just ended for Philips, Lumileds reported sales of $280 million, representing
a 43% annual growth, and their net income was $62 million, which as a percentage
of sales, represents 22% of sales. The figures were released during a presentation
to analysts by Peter van Strijp, Executive VP and CEO BU Solid State Lighting
at Philips on the occasion of their annual Analysts
Day. This was the first time Lumileds' revenues have been publicly reported
and the San Jose, California based Lumileds is justly proud of their numbers,
as is their parent company, Philips, which clearly made Solid State Lighting
(SSL) the hot topic of this particular Analysts
Day gathering in Europe. The presenters included the highest ranking executives
of Philips and the entire proceedings are available online, a webcast replay
of which will be available
online via this location for a year. An entire section was devoted to Philips'
strategic view of the SSL industry and Philips' role in it. Commentary on the
entire presentation and on Lumileds' performance and role in the industry will
be covered in detail in an upcoming McDonald Report. In the
meantime, we recommended you hit the above hotlinks and view the Philips presentations
for yourself. The pictures alone tell an incredible success story for SSL applications. Fujitsu Announces Results of GaN on Aluminum Nitride HEMT DevelopmentDecember 23, 2004...Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. reported their GaN on AlN results at IEDM last week
and the details will be of considerable interest to those working on GaN-based
electronic device designs as well as the GaN-related alternative substrate development
community, which includes sapphire, SiC, native GaN, and "other" of
which AlN appears to be gaining recognition as well as silicon. We'll be reporting
more on Fujitsu's progress as well as Nitronex' devices which recently ran successfully
through the TriQuint process which were revealed at our recent Outlook conference.
Until then, we point you to the Fujitsu company
news release. Jacques Pankove Officially Retires and Signs Astralux Over to Rande Treece
Jo Ann McDonald, Founding EditorDecember 20, 2004...GaN LED and HBT pioneer, Jacques
Pankove, who has often been honored by our industry, has recently officially
retired from Astralux, the company
from which he has so wonderfully served the wide bandgap community since his
retirement from serving as a Professor at the University of Colorado in the
USA. Indeed a world citizen and longtime good friend to this editor, Jacques
and his wife Ethyl, who has been his partner in Astralux, continue to enjoy
good health and are watching the company they formed now be run by Randolph
E. Treece, Ph.D (Rande) whom Jacques has mentored in recent years to take over
the company. The right time has evidently come, and as of October, Rande became
owner of Astralux. What Astralux does is what it has always done, leverage its
core expertise in research and development and help young companies grow and
successfully spin out from Astralux, as they did with their first company, PowerSicel,
Inc., back in December of 2001. What PowerSicel did was leverage Jacques and
Rande's expertise in SiC transistor technology and a commitment of funds with
that of an Astralux employee, Dr. John Torvik, who serves as PowerSicel's co-founder
and President/CEO). For this, Astralux received an equity stake in PowerSicel
and commenced to raise additional funds to commercialize the transistor technology.
PowerSicel and Astralux continue to work closely together.
That model will be repeated often at Astralux in the years ahead and more people
like John Torvik are precisely what Rande's looking for. Astralux is essentially
a cutting edge hothouse. They bring technology from the concept stage
to the point that a high-growth company can be essentially birthed (spun off)
from Astralux. "We will grow value in Astralux by repeating this process.
We are currently working on the early stages of three main technology families.
The first is hybrid substrates, the combination of thin slices of one material
bonded to another to achieve the benefits of both. We have been funded by ONR
and the Air Force to develop SiC related hybrid substrates," said Rande
Treece. The second area of research involves the exciting devices that can be
developed based vacuum electron emission from negative electron affinity (NEA)
surfaces. "Through the appropriate engineering it should be possible
to create an electronic cooler, or a direct-thermal-to-electrical converter,
or (hopefully) both using GaN-based NEA materials. We are currently funded by
DARPA to work on this and have also received funds from the Office of the Secretary
of Defense related to these activities," he explained. "The
third area is based on UV-based bio-defense systems based on electron-pumped
UV emission. We are working with California-based Photon Systems, Inc. to develop
a UV laser that will be included in an analysis tool to detect biological agents.
This work is supported by DARPA. We are also working on a bio-decontamination
tool with the Air Force." Astralux currently has 7 issued patents and
5 in the hopper, which we covered in detail in our latest issue of LIGHTinsight.
Rande can be reached via www.Astraluxinc.com
his tel is: +1 303-413-1440 and email is rtreece@astraluxinc.com.
Endwave Transceivers Headed for Nokia FlexiHopper Microwave RadiosDecember 23, 2004...Endwave of Sunnyvale, California USA has signed a new contract amendment with
the Networks division of Nokia, valued at several million dollars, which expands
the range of frequencies currently supplied by Endwave. The transceivers will
be installed in both the Nokia FlexiHopper and next generation Nokia
FlexiHopper Plus microwave radios for use in Nokia's cellular networks
in Europe, Asia and Latin America over the next two years. Endwave's transceivers
are customized to seamlessly integrate with Nokia's FlexiHopper radios
by combining the high frequency transmit and receive functions of a radio system
into one package, which can be used for many communication needs in cellular,
fixed and dedicated networks. "This follow-on agreement expands upon
the range of frequencies Endwave provides to Nokia and further strengthens our
position as a key supplier of next-generation cellular broadband wireless subsystems,"
said Ed Keible, President and CEO of Endwave Corporation. Company
news release Opto Tech Tagged to Build Gigantic LED Display for 2008 Olympics in BeijingDecember 23, 2004...Opto Tech of Taiwan has received the honor of building what looks to be the
largest LED display built to date, measuring approximately 6,000 square meters
-- 200 meters in length and 30 meters in width -- for promoting the Bejing Olympics
and serve as a major focal point at the International Trade Center. According
to a Dec. 21 DigiTimes report,
Opto Tech intends to invest $20 million to complete the Bejing project, and
that other major cities in China are likely to commission similar giant screen
displays. According to the report, Opto Tech also told DigiTimes that
they've begun volume shipments of Nichia-branded blue spectrum LEDs. Our news features are reported
by the CompoundSemi News staff writers.
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