USHIO debuts two new UX4-LEDs series models

SEMICON West 2011, TOKYO, JAPAN: USHIO Inc. announced that the company has started shipping the world's first 200-mm wafer full-field projection lithography tool "UX4-LEDs FFPL 200" for manufacturing High-Brightness LED chips, and has completed development of the laser lift-off system "UX4-LEDs LLO 150" for volume manufacturing of vertical-structure LED chips.

These latest models of the UX4-LEDs are based on the same platform as USHIO's field-proven UX series, which has an installed base of more than 1,100 systems. They will be exhibited through a panel display at SEMICON West 2011, to be held on July 12 through July 14 at Moscone Center in San Francisco, California (Booth # 2633).

UX4-LEDs FFPL 200: 200-mm wafer full-field projection lithography tool
The UX4-LEDs 150-mm wafer full-field projection lithography tool, released last November, has already been used for high-volume manufacturing of LED chips at world-leading LED manufacturers in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China, where it has proved its high performance and high reliability. The UX4-LEDs FFPL 200 is mounted with a full-field projection lens of 200 mm in diameter on the common UX4-LEDs platform to enable full-field projection exposure of a 200-mm wafer; it can achieve a high throughput of 120 wafers per hour.

Unlike the stepper systems that lower their productivity as the wafer becomes larger, the UX4-LEDs FFPL 200 uses the full-field projection method to enhance its productivity by increasing the wafer size. Therefore, it allows further enhancement of the productivity and reduction of the Cost-of-Ownership (CoO) in the LED lithography process.

UX4-LEDs LLO 150: 150-mm wafer laser lift-off system for HVM of vertical structure LED chips
The laser lift-off (LLO) technology, for stripping a GaN film from a sapphire substrate, is indispensable to increase LED brightness. Leveraging the field-proven photolithography excimer laser, well known for high repetitive frequency and high stability as well as proven DUV optical technologies, USHIO has succeeded in developing the UX4-LEDs LLO 150 laser lift-off system that can achieve both high yield and high throughput.

This system also makes a contribution to significant reduction of the LED manufacturing cost because it allows reuse of a sapphire substrate by stripping the GaN film from the entire sapphire substrate surface.