SANTA ROSA, Calif., February 11, 2013 — Thermal Technology is a leading manufacturer of crystal growth equipment and high temperature furnace systems. They recently shipped 14 K1 sapphire crystal growers to a customer in Europe for HB LED applications. The K1’s large 90kg sapphire boule is optimized for 4” and 6” cores used in LED production. The K1 can potentially produce 8” cores as well.
“We continue to strengthen our position in the high brightness LED market,” says Matt Mede, Thermal Technology president and CEO. “Spending time at customers’ facilities throughout the world, I see our competitors sapphire tools unplugged and pushed aside, while ours are in production. The K1’s quality output speaks for itself.”
As Thermal Technology completes sapphire growth protocol transfer at its customers’ facilities, K1 sapphire production has increased noticeably with customers producing large, high quality boules and reporting yields of 4200mm TIE.
Over recent decades, LED lighting technology has continued to develop and commercialize. In fact, LEDs are beginning to replace incandescent light bulbs in common lighting applications. Refined LED technology has led to the development of high brightness LEDs (HB LED) for electronic display backlighting and other high-tech applications. Producing HB LED requires higher quality, single sapphire substrate.
Thermal Technology designed the Model K1 crystal grower for HB LED substrate production. To satisfy the demand of the growing high quality sapphire market, Thermal Technology has successfully tripled their manufacturing facility.
Thermal Technology is a global manufacturer of advance thermal processing systems. Their product line includes crystal growth furnace systems, high temperature laboratory and production furnaces, hot presses and SPS/DCS systems. They have 60 years of experience with more than 3000 installations in 40 countries.
