News Details

KaiStar Purchases Multiple Veeco EPIK700 MOCVD Systems to Boost Led Production for the General Lighting Market

April 6, 2015

PLAINVIEW, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Veeco Instruments Inc. (Nasdaq:VECO) announced today that KaiStar Lighting Co., Ltd., based in Xiamen, China has ordered multiple TurboDisc® EPIK700™ Gallium Nitride (GaN) Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) systems. KaiStar, a joint venture between Epistar Corporation and Shenzhen Kaifa Technology Co., Ltd., will use the EPIK700 systems to ramp production of light emitting diodes (LEDs) for the general lighting market.

“As an early adopter of Veeco’s new EPIK700 MOCVD system, we have seen its potential for significant production and cost-saving benefits for LED manufacturing,” said Dr. MJ Jou, President, Epistar Corporation. “Late last year, we were able to seamlessly transfer our LED process and rapidly qualify the EPIK700 system for LED production in our Taiwan fab. We have now decided to expand our LED production at KaiStar in China with this new, highly productive MOCVD system.”

Based on Veeco’s proven TurboDisc technology, the EPIK700 MOCVD system is the LED industry’s highest productivity MOCVD system. The EPIK700 system received the 2015 CS Industry Award for Innovation in March.

“Since its formation, KaiStar has been an important Veeco customer and a leader in LED production,” said Jim Jenson, Senior Vice President, Veeco MOCVD Operations. “Their decision to use the award-winning EPIK700 reflects the performance, reliability and production-readiness of our newest MOCVD system. We believe the EPIK700 is the best MOCVD system by far to accelerate the growing adoption of solid state lighting. We expect that 2015 will be the crossover year in which shipments of LEDs for general lighting will surpass shipments of LEDs for backlighting, with the Epistar companies being a significant driver of that trend.”

About TurboDisc EPIK700 GaN MOCVD SYSTEM

Veeco’s new EPIK700 MOCVD system is the LED industry’s highest productivity MOCVD system — it reduces cost per wafer by up to 20 percent compared to previous generations. Available in one and two-reactor configurations, the EPIK700 system features breakthrough technologies including the IsoFlange™ and TruHeat™ technologies which provide homogeneous laminar flow and uniform temperature profile across the entire wafer carrier. These innovations produce wavelength uniformity to drive higher yields in a tighter bin. The EPIK700 system offers a 2.5x throughput advantage over other systems due to its large reactor size. Designed for mass production, the EPIK700 system accommodates 31x4”, 12x6” and 6x8” wafer carrier sizes. Customers can easily transfer processes from existing TurboDisc systems to the EPIK700 MOCVD platform enabling quick-start production of high-quality LEDs. Because of the flexible EPIK700 MOCVD platform, more upgrades, added benefits and future enhancements will continue to differentiate this world-class system.

About KaiStar Lighting (Xiamen) Co., Ltd.

KaiStar, a joint venture between Epistar Corporation and Shenzhen Kaifa Technology Co., Ltd., has registered capital of $120 million. The Company focuses on the lighting market through the production of InGaN LEDs for lighting and backlighting applications, lamps and automotive products. Their mission is to improve the quality of people’s life with the advanced LED technology and products, to create value for society to support the green energy technology and provide a perfect platform for employee development. For more information, please visit http://www.kaistar.com.cn/index.asp

About Veeco

Veeco’s process equipment solutions enable the manufacture of LEDs, flexible OLED displays, power electronics, compound semiconductors, hard drives, semiconductors, MEMS and wireless chips. We are the market leader in MOCVD, MBE, Ion Beam, Wet Etch single wafer processing and other advanced thin film process technologies. Our high performance systems drive innovation in energy efficiency, consumer electronics and network storage and allow our customers to maximize productivity and achieve lower cost of ownership. For information on our company, products and worldwide service and support, please visit www.veeco.com.

To the extent that this news release discusses expectations or otherwise makes statements about the future, such statements are forward-looking and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These factors include the risks discussed in the Business Description and Management's Discussion and Analysis sections of Veeco's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014 and in our subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and press releases. Veeco does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances after the date of such statements.

Source: Veeco Instruments Inc.

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