UK III-Vs boost

The UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, National Centre for III-V Technologies, based at the University of Sheffield’s Centre for Nanoscience and Technology in its Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering (www.shef.ac.uk/eee/research/nc35t), has received a renewal contract worth £10m over the next five years to support continued research in III-V semiconductor materials and devices by researchers throughout the UK (www.sheffield.ac.uk/mediacentre/2010/1744.html). Research in III-V semiconductors and devices has been undertaken at the University for 32 years. Current applied projects include studies of high efficiency solar cells via QuantaSol, a spin-out company from Imperial College and the University of Sheffield. The facility is also working on enhancing the production techniques for quantum cascade lasers for application in pollution and emissions monitoring.

$500k genius

Congratulations to Michal Lipson (www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Sept10/LipsonMacArthur.html) for being awarded one of the 2010 MacArthur Fellows for her work on photonic circuits. The Cornell associate professor of electrical and computer engineering receives not only the honour of the so called "genius award" but in addition a mere $500,000 in no-strings-attached support over the next five years.

Take a snapshot without your phone!

The Surface Analysis eNewsletter from Thermo Fisher Scientific provides timely, relevant information about new products and applications in surface analysis techniques. The newsletter also includes information on web seminars, articles, application note downloads, interviews with experts and the latest in Surface Analysys Technology. rta-instruments.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=4407b1064488fe522a97c5527&id=45fbfe97a3&e=00b22ccdd3

Telephone numbers

Recently ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com) commented that more than 321 million mobile handsets were shipped in Q2 -2100. The company noted the rise in market share for LG and Nokia's continued decline. Interesting stuff, but the Editor was amazed by the numbers. This represents an annual output of over 1,000 million (one billion) handsets. The world population is about 7,000 million (seven billion). Generally accepted figures indicate that about 80% of the world's population (about 5 billion people) live on less than $10 a day so the handsets are not distributed uniformly through the population. Recent figures (www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/idi/2010/Material/MIS_2010_Summary_E.pdf) give a total of 4.6 billion mobile subscriptions by the end of 2009. Like most people I do talk to myself from time to time but are people now doing it by mobile?

Any colour - so long as not white?

It seems that Henry Ford knew something that Steve Jobs might benefit from. The story from Reuters (uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE66M29C20100723) is intriguing. Apparently making a white iPhone has "continued to be more challenging to manufacture that we originally expected." According to several websites the company involved in manufacturing glass for the iPhone’s signature shell is still working out the perfect combination of paint thickness and opacity to achieve Apple’s trademark absolute whiteness. For geeks see: www.justinseeley.com/2010/07/26/how-to-make-your-own-white-iphone-4/. For pragmatists see: schools-wikipedia.org/wp/h/Henry_Ford.htm

Got the blues

A recent research report by Displaybank (www.displaybank.com/eng/report/report_show.php?id=726) forecasts the doubling in worldwide blue LED capacity in about 18 months. They estimate the number of installed MOCVD systems needed to make blue LEDs will rise to 2,000 by the first quarter of 2011 and nearly 2,500 by the end of 2011. The demand being driven by a range of applications including lighting mobile devices, cars, LCD backlights and large electronic signs. These figures contrast with the 1,000 MOCVD systems installed worldwide in June 2009 and 500 in April 2008. To illustrate the projected growth, Displaybank's report notes that Seoul Optodevice Co., Ltd. will go from using less than 20 MOCVD machines in 2009 to about 80 in 2011. Additionally, as reported in Semiconductor Today (www.semiconductor-today.com/news_items/2010/AUG/IMS_300810.htm) more than 300 MOCVD systems were installed in the second quarter of 2010. Quoting from the IMS Research (www.imsresearch.com) Quarterly GaN LED Supply Report, Semiconductor Today notes that in excess of 4,000 MOCVD systems are expected to ship in the 2010 to 2013 timeframe.

RTA Instruments covers all the angles at the University of Southampton

The School of Electronics and Computer Science has completed the purchase of a Theta Probe XPS system, from our partner Thermo Fisher Scientific. Patented Theta Probe technology provides the unique ability to collect angle-resolved XPS spectra over a 60° angular range, in parallel, without tilting the sample and allows the instrument to characterize ultra-thin films non-destructively (more on Theta Probe). The system will be installed in the Nanofabrication Centre (www.southampton-nanofab.com/) later this year.

New webhost for RTA

After 4 years of succeful webhosting and email service with California provider, Gearworx, we are moving to eHosting based here in the UK. Email is working already and our contacts should see no changes, but the website will be off-line for the next few weeks.

Thought for the month

"Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly"- Francis Bacon, Philosopher (1561 - 1626).

QinetiQ restructuring

The recent announcement by QinetiQ www.qinetiq.com/home/newsroom/news_releases_homepage/2010/3rd_quarter/qinetiq_announces.html that the company is to streamline and restructure its UK operations to meet the current economic climate is very saddening. Whilst exact details and timings of where the axe will fall are still pending, RTA Instruments understands that the Malvern based Emerging Technologies Group, which includes compound semiconductors and MEMs capability, will be closed in due course. This includes all the MBE, MOVPE, GaN, InSb, CMT and Si growth and processing activities, circuit design and analytics.

RTA Newsletter Editor, Dr John Grange comments:

As Editor I have many fond memories relating to the Malvern and Baldock sites (TRE, RSRE, DRA, DERA et al). In particular the former, where incidentally my father worked in the1940's on radar and aircraft blind landing systems. It is not possible to overstate the achievements of the embryonic precursors to QinetiQ in the semiconductor arena. In addition their impact was greatly enhanced and increased through partnering, sponsoring, mentoring and encouraging activities within industry and academia. The work of Don Hurle in pulling together the various III-V consortia and working parties being an example. My personal memories also produce plaudits relating to how the III-V areas of Czochralski crystal growth and thin film epitaxy were fostered and developed into technologies capable of supporting real world production applications. Readers are invited to submit their thoughts.

Salute all engineers

RTA Newsletter Editor Dr John Grange will, from next month, no longer make disparaging comments about nerdy, geeky engineers. They are my heroes in this age of irrelevant, narcissistic information overload. In a recent EE Times survey of 285 engineers, 85% reported that they don’t use Twitter. More than half indicated that the statement “I don’t really care what you had for breakfast,” best sums up their feelings about it; others characterized it as “a ridiculous waste of time and electrons” or expressed the strong desire for it to simply “go away”. Details via: www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=CL4SECRQDUIBTQE1GHOSKHWATMY32JVN?articleID=225700747. A sound set of views or is the Editor merely being a 50+ year old ranting Luddite ignoring a valuable social media communication mechanism?