Tag Archives: Rubicon Technology

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Patent Granted for Asymmetrical Wafer Configurations for Rubicon Technology

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By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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Patent Granted for Asymmetrical Wafer Configurations for Rubicon Technology


Provides Tactile and Visual Indicators for Sapphire Wafer Orientation

BENSENVILLE, Ill.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Rubicon Technology, Inc. (NAS: RBCN) , a leading provider of sapphire substrates and products to the LED, semiconductor, and optical industries, today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted a patent to Rubicon entitled, “Asymmetrical Wafer Configurations and Method for Creating the Same,” U.S. Patent No. 8,389,099. The patent covers the creation of visual and tactile indicators to make sapphire wafers asymmetric according to their crystalline orientation.

Sapphire wafers have specific orientation that is invisible to the naked eye. Rubicon has developed a simple, yet elegant, process to make wafers appear asymmetrical via visual or tactile inspection. This is important as LED and semiconductor manufacturers process sapphire wafers using specific crystalline orientations. The patent helps manufacturers in the LED and SoS/RFIC industries eliminate costly and unnecessary steps to determine orientation of sapphire wafers during processing, such as x-ray crystallography.

Epitaxy-ready wafers have either an orientation flat or an orientation notch, but this provides insufficient information: the wafer could be flipped front-to-back and still look the same yet be unusable in that state crystallographically. Only through repeated x-ray inspections could the manufacturer ensure that no wafers are reversed. If the wafers are made asymmetrical, operators at each stage of production can verify surface orientation quickly and economically, and will be confident that the wafers have been handled correctly.

Rubicon’s patent demonstrates several different solutions for making sapphire wafers asymmetric. In one solution, a rounded corner on the orientation flat or notch allows a user to easily determine that the wafer has not been reversed. In another solution, both corners of the flat are rounded to different radii. These differences are enough to determine orientation by touch or visual inspection. The technique can be applied to other substrates including silicon, silicon oxide, aluminum nitride, germanium, silicon carbide, gallium arsenide, gallium phosphide, gallium nitride, and amorphous analogs.

“This new patent demonstrates our ongoing commitment to refine our products for our customers and deliver innovations that deliver real value,” said Raja M. Parvez, President and CEO of Rubicon Technology. “For Rubicon’s customers in the LED and SoS/RFIC markets, the crystal orientation is a critical factor in their manufacturing processes. This patent provides a …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

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Should Corning Be Scared of Sapphire?

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By Evan Niu, CFA, The Motley Fool

Sapphire camera lens covers used in the iPhone 5. Source: Apple.

Some analysts believe that 2013 will be the year that some smartphone OEMs begin using sapphire in their flagship devices. Apple is an obvious possibility as the biggest company that’s publicly marketing its use of the material, but Google is also rumored to use sapphire in the upcoming Motorola “X Phone.”

Talk of this possibility began last year, with Sterne Agee supply checks finding prototype smartphones with sapphire displays in the works. Most of the sapphire industry sells into the LED industry, and incremental opportunities in smartphones could be enormous. Sterne Agee estimated that the smartphone industry translated into 9 billion square inches of material in 2012, which towers over the 150 million square inches used by the LED industry over the same time. If sapphire were able to penetrate just 2% of the smartphone market, the industry’s addressable market would double.

Crystalline winners
Sapphire suppliers like Rubicon Technology and GT Advanced Technologies could benefit in the same way that Corning did years ago.

Cover and touchscreen applications of sapphire. Source: GT Advanced Technologies.

Rubicon is a vertically integrated supplier that uses a proprietary technology for growing the crystals that it calls 

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The story of Corning‘s Gorilla Glass dates back over six decades. The glass maker accidentally made a product that no one was interested in using, and for years it was known as Chemcor and simply had no addressable market. In the early ’70s, Corning gave up trying to sell the stuff and the formula gathered dust for 40 years.

That was until Steve Jobs came around and wanted to cover Apple‘s iPhone with the material, since most smartphone displays predating Apple’s device were covered in plastic that was easily scratched. In the years since, Gorilla Glass has grown to become one of Corning’s most important growth businesses, thanks in large part to smartphone adoption and Apple effectively standardizing the material’s use in high-end mobile devices.

Source: SEC filings. “Other” segment not shown due to negligible sales.

Gorilla Glass is included in Corning’s specialty materials segment and is the primary reason why that operating segment has grown from just 6% of sales in 2009 to an impressive 17% of revenue in 2012.

In November, Corning guided the Gorilla Glass business to $1 billion in annual revenue, a target that it subsequently hit. That was up 44% from 2011, and the majority of the $1.3 billion in revenue that specialty materials generated in 2012. Gorilla Glass also carries gross margins that are much higher than the corporate average.

It turns out that there may be a threat on the horizon to Gorilla Glass, and one that Apple may be catalyzing. Should Corning be scared of sapphire?

Monkey business
Last week, MIT Technology Review published a report on the possible future use of sapphire in smartphone screens, which could potentially replace Gorilla Glass eventually. This threat isn’t at all imminent, as the cost differential remains very high, so most smartphone vendors wouldn’t yet consider adopting it.

A Gorilla Glass display cover currently costs less than $3, which is much cheaper than the $30 that a similar sapphire display would set an OEM back. Eventually, the cost of sapphire could decline to below $20 due to competition and technological advances.

Such a pricey component would put a serious damper on margins. For example, the iPhone 5’s bill of materials excluding manufacturing was estimated at $199, so an extra $27 for the display’s cover material would be a 14% increase in component costs that would represent a gross margin reduction of 4%. While Apple is one of the few smartphone OEMs that could technically afford this type of hit, it certainly doesn’t want to.

Sapphire is much stronger and more scratch resistant than glass, which would make it an ideal candidate if costs permit. At the same time, Corning isn’t resting on its laurels and has now launched Gorilla Glass 3, which includes what the company calls Native Damage Resistance for improved durability. The first smartphone to be unveiled with Gorilla Glass 3 was Samsung’s Galaxy S4 that was shown off earlier this …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

What Will Googorola's iPhone Killer Look Like?

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By Evan Niu, CFA, The Motley Fool

Sapphire camera lens covers used in the iPhone 5. Source: Apple.

Sapphire is three times stronger than Gorilla Glass but also costs up to 10 times as much. Those costs should come down in the future, which may spur adoption and potentially threaten one of Corning’s fastest-growing businesses. However, that cost discrepancy means that Corning has time to continue beefing up Gorilla Glass. The glass maker just unveiled Gorilla Glass 3, which debuted on Samsung’s Galaxy S4.

Apple was the first smartphone vendor to catalyze Gorilla Glass adoption, and it may be the same one to signal an eventual shift toward sapphire displays. Sapphire suppliers like Rubicon Technology and GT Advanced Technologies could potentially benefit from that transition if it materializes meaningfully over the next couple years.

All that and a bag of chips
Inside the X Phone should be one of Qualcomm‘s latest and greatest Snapdragon processors, potentially its high-end 800 Series that was just announced in January and is currently sampling for mid-year commercial launches. Specifically, phoneArena believes it may be a quad-core 2 GHz chip inside.

As with all rumors, none of the above may be true, especially since the rumbling directly contradicts another X Phone rumor from earlier this month. Android World had speculated that the device would carry a 4.7-inch display and notably a different processor — NVIDIA‘s quad-core

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Late last year, rumors surfaced that Google‘s Motorola subsidiary was working on a new high-end flagship smartphone to take on Apple‘s iPhone. The device was reportedly called the “X Phone” internally, and it wasn’t long until the device’s existence was inadvertently confirmed through a job listing for a senior director of product management that was promptly taken down.

Just last month at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference, Google CFO Patrick Pichette went and candidly bashed the product pipeline that Google inherited from Motorola, saying they wouldn’t live up to the search giant’s standards for “wow” products. “We’ve inherited 18 months of pipeline that we actually have to drain right now, while we’re actually building the next wave of innovation and product lines,” he said, adding, “We have to go through this transition. These are not easy transitions.”

Big G is clearly looking to flush out the mediocre devices that are already en route posthaste so that it can clear the way for a real “wow” smartphone. It’s now been 19 months since the acquisition was announced (and nearly 10 months since it closed). During that time, Apple has continued dominating the domestic smartphone market, comprising 65% of all smartphones activated on the three biggest domestic carriers during the fourth quarter.

Where is the X Phone when Google needs it?

Thankful for the X Phone?
According to a rumor out of phoneArena, Googorola is planning on launching the device in November ahead of the holiday shopping season. The anonymous source claims that the X Phone will sport a 4.8-inch display covered with sapphire glass instead of Corning‘s ubiquitous Gorilla Glass that almost all modern smartphones have. The device may also pack a substantially beefier battery.

The talk of sapphire comes just after the MIT Technology Review released a report last week discussing the use of manufactured sapphire in smartphones. Apple just started using sapphire crystal in the iPhone 5, but as the primary camera lens cover.

Sapphire camera lens covers used in the iPhone 5. Source: Apple.

Sapphire is three times stronger than Gorilla Glass but also costs up to 10 times as much. Those costs should come down in the future, which may spur adoption and potentially threaten one of Corning’s fastest-growing businesses. However, that cost discrepancy means that Corning has time to continue beefing up Gorilla Glass. The glass maker just unveiled Gorilla Glass 3, which debuted on Samsung’s Galaxy S4.

Apple was the first smartphone vendor to catalyze Gorilla Glass adoption, and it may be the same one to signal an eventual shift toward sapphire displays. Sapphire suppliers like Rubicon Technology and GT Advanced Technologies could potentially benefit from that transition if it materializes meaningfully over the next couple years.

All that and a bag of chips
Inside the X Phone should be one of Qualcomm‘s latest and greatest Snapdragon processors, potentially its high-end 800 Series that was just announced in January and is …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance