Kyma Announces Commercial Availability of 2-inch N-type GaN Substrates

Raleigh, NC / July 1, 2013 – Kyma Technologies, Inc., a leading supplier of advanced gallium nitride (GaN) and aluminum nitride materials to the LED and power electronics industries, today announced the commercial availability of 2-inch diameter n-type c-plane GaN substrates.

Kyma has produced free-standing gallium nitride products in a variety of form factors during the company’s 15 year history, including c-plane substrate form factors of 10mm squares, 18mm squares, and 30mm diameter rounds, and rectangular non-polar and semi-polar substrates of 5mm x 10mm and larger. However, 2-inch c-plane GaN substrates were typically held back from commercial sales for use in government contract programs or internal R&D. Improvements in the availability of 2-inch substrates has allowed the company to release more of this product to commercial customers.

Kyma Chief Marketing Officer, Ed Preble, notes, “GaN device manufacturers making devices on Sapphire or Silicon are constantly striving to improve the performance of their devices. GaN substrates allow for GaN-on-GaN growth, which results in devices that have double the thermal conductivity and 100-1000 times fewer crystal defects. Improvements to these two material properties are critical for boosting device performance and reliability.”

2-inch round substrates are a critical form factor for most GaN based device processors. Most LED manufacturers currently use 2-inch sapphire wafers in MOCVD GaN epitaxy systems and also in a number of post-epitaxy wafer processing systems. Providing this wafer shape is therefore critical to enabling bulk GaN wafers to penetrate into the existing GaN device markets.

Kyma CEO, Keith Evans, commented, “We are very pleased to begin shipping 2-inch wafers, an important entry point for our customer’s production requirements. Kyma has long sought to improve the availability of GaN substrates for our many customers asking for this material every day and this is a critical step for us to take.”

In addition to the thermal conductivity and defect related benefits of GaN-on-GaN device growth, there are several other benefits, including a) shorter and simpler epitaxy recipes, b) higher current density and/or smaller device footprint, c) no wafer bow after epitaxy, and d) simpler designs for vertical device geometries.

About Kyma Technologies

Kyma’s mission is to provide advanced nitride materials solutions that promote energy efficiency. Kyma’s products include a diverse portfolio of crystalline nitride semiconductor materials, crystal growth systems, and power switching electronics.

For more information about Kyma Technologies, 

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Kyma Licenses Advanced Electromagnetic Field Sensor Technology from UNLV

Raleigh, NC / May 29, 2013 – Kyma Technologies, Inc., a leading supplier of advanced materials solutions that promote safety and energy efficiency, today announced that they have signed an exclusive license to a patented innovative electric and magnetic field sensor technology invented by scientists at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).

Invented by UNLV professor Robert Schill and research scientist Marc Popek, US patent 7,482,814 is entitled “ELECTRIC/MAGNETIC SENSOR” and describes a novel sensor that supports simultaneous and wide bandwidth detection of the temporal variation of both the electric field and the magnetic field at a single point in space.

Kyma is calling the sensor the EM Dot™ and notes that it is easily calibrated and can be used to rapidly extract detailed equivalent circuit information associated with the sensor surroundings. Kyma plans to launch an EM Dot™ product line this year.

Kyma representatives were introduced to the UNLV sensor technology during their first visit with Schill, who founded UNLV’s Energy Materials Interaction Technology Initiative of Nevada (EMITION) Center in December of 2005 and serves as its director.

Kyma’s CEO Keith Evans and CTO Bob Metzger were introduced to professor Schill in early 2012 by Rama Venkat, the dean of UNLV’s engineering college, to foster discussions of how Kyma’s high-speed, high-power photoconductive switch technology might be exploited in UNLV’s research programs. Subsequently, Evans and Metzger visited Schill’s impressive pulsed power physics laboratory, and noticed several probes with a ‘made in the lab’ look. They inquired and learned that professor Schill and his research team had figured out a way to make sensors that were twice as efficient and about 10 times less costly than equivalent commercially available sensors.

Recognizing a unique opportunity that is aligned with Kyma’s growing interest in novel sensor technology, Kyma began pursuing the license immediately.

“From the day that Dean Venkat introduced Kyma Technologies to the UNLV EMITION Center, magic sparked,” said Schill.  “We are excited and honored to be a part of Kyma’s new product line. Although in the initial stage, we anticipate merging Kyma’s high-speed, high-voltage, high-current photoconductive semiconductor switch technologies with the EM-dot™. Our goal will be developing a robust autonomous system that will provide feedback in monitoring and controlling the performance of their switch.”

Schill added that Kyma Technologies and the EMITION Center are embarking on a number of innovative applications of Kyma’s GaN switch that will enable revolutionary advances solving difficult problems of interest to government and industrial sectors. 

The sensor is an important tool in characterizing a variety of electromagnetic phenomena, including rapidly changing electric and magnetic fields associated with pulsed-power phenomena. Further, the tool senses fast open circuit to short circuit and fast short circuit to open circuit transitions of interest, in part, to examine fault conditions, circuit degradation, and switching properties. 

This license represents the next step by Kyma to grow its relatively new Sensors Division. Other sensor activity recently announced by the company includes its partnership with Duke University in advanced chemical sensor technology development and its participation in the North Carolina State University (NCSU) led NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center (NERC) for Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies (ASSIST).

“UNLV is a wonderful resource and a great collaboration partner for Kyma on three separate projects,” said Kyma CEO Keith Evans. “Our collaboration with professor Schill in the characterization and application of our KO-Switch™ is an important part of our technology roadmap for that product line. An advanced computer modeling experiment performed by professor Rama Venkat’s group has already benefited Kyma’s GaN crystal growth effort. And our growing collaboration with professor Ke-Xun (Kevin) Sun, who is building a Center of Excellence for Security Science and Engineering at UNLV is quite exciting to us due to several advanced materials-related synergies.”

About Kyma Technologies

Kyma’s mission is to provide advanced materials solutions that promote safety and energy efficiency. Kyma’s products include a diverse portfolio of crystalline nitride semiconductor materials, crystal growth and fabrication equipment, and power switching electronics. Additionally, the company is developing a suite of novel chemical and electromagnetic field sensor technologies.

For more information about Kyma Technologies, visit www.kymatech.com, send an email to info@kymatech.com, or call the company directly at 919.789.8880.

Kyma is a registered trademark of Kyma Technologies, Inc.

About UNLV

UNLV is a doctoral-degree-granting institution of more than 27,000 students and 2,900 faculty and staff. Founded in 1957, the university offers more than 220 undergraduate, master's and doctoral degree programs. UNLV is located on a 332-acre campus in dynamic Southern Nevada and is classified in the category of Research Universities (high research activity) by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Learn more about UNLV research at http://www.unlv.edu/research.

Kyma Advances Support of Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Power Electronics

Raleigh, NC / June 13, 2013 – Kyma Technologies, Inc., a leading supplier of advanced materials solutions that promote safety and energy efficiency, today announced its multi-pronged support of the worldwide rush to develop wide bandgap semiconductor (WBGS) power electronics.

Scientists and engineers worldwide are developing WBGS devices to improve the efficiency and decrease the size and cooling requirements of power electronics components and modules such as AC/DC inverters and DC/DC converters for a multitude of applications including transportation, renewable energy, and the electric grid. Most such efforts utilize either gallium nitride (GaN) or silicon carbide (SiC) device active regions. SiC devices are grown on SiC substrates, while GaN devices are grown either on GaN or Si substrates. The homoepitaxial GaN on GaN approach has the greatest potential in terms of device performance due to low defect densities and ability to support vertical device geometries yet GaN substrate technology is still in the development stage.  Heteroepitaxial GaN on Si leverages the low cost and ready availability of Si substrates yet it also compromises the quality of the GaN and makes vertical device geometries difficult to realize.

Kyma’s multi-pronged support of the WBGS power electronics market includes the following materials, devices, and equipment products and services.

• Kyma’s plasma vapor deposition (PVD) tools and PVD grown AlN on Si template products support the fabrication of heteroepitaxial GaN on Si power electronic devices
• Kyma’s hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) tools and HVPE grown bulk GaN substrates support the fabrication of homoepitaxial GaN on GaN power electronic devices
• Kyma also provides GaN on Si templates by growing a thin layer of GaN by HVPE on top of a PVD AlN on Si template
• Kyma is developing an (Al,Ga)N on Si template technology which has great potential to improve both the cost and the quality of GaN on Si device wafer technology
• Kyma also fabricates GaN and SiC wafers in its Customer Crystal Fabrication Facility with K-Orbital™ Multi-Wire Saws which utilize K-Slice™ Diamond Wire fabricated on Kyma's K-Slice™ Diamond Wire Maker
• Kyma’s first device product, the KO-Switch™, is itself a WBGS power electronic device, and behaves as an optically isolated and gated switch which can standoff up to 10kV with essentially zero leakage current, while turning on in less than one billionth of a second to a very low on-resistance state

The company is experiencing record customer demand for its products and is on track in 2013 for a record revenue year in terms of wafer sales, equipment sales, and device sales both separately and combined.

Keith Evans, Kyma president & CEO commented, “We are pleased to support this exciting green technology space. With solid state lighting really taking off, and WBGS power electronics becoming so important, Kyma’s outlook could not be brighter.”

About Kyma Technologies

Kyma’s mission is to provide advanced materials solutions that promote safety and energy efficiency. Kyma’s products include a diverse portfolio of crystalline nitride semiconductor materials, crystal growth and fabrication equipment, wafer fabrication services, and power switching electronics. Additionally, the company is developing a suite of novel chemical and electromagnetic field sensor technologies.

For more information about Kyma Technologies, visit www.kymatech.com, send an email to info@kymatech.com, or call the company directly at 919.789.8880.

Kyma is a registered trademark of Kyma Technologies, Inc.