EFY Times.

com (08-04-2010)
http://www.efytimes.com/e1/creativenews.asp?edid=43420

CSIR Developing India's First Indigenously Fabricated LED Chip

The 46 crore worth LED chip fabrication project aims at developing about 100 types of LED chips by March 2012. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is making the first attempt in the country to fabricate organic and inorganic LED chips for solid state lighting applications. The first version of the chip is expected to come out by March 2012. According to Dr Chenna Dhanavantri, Scientist F Group Leader, Optoelectronic Devices Group, Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute (CEERI Pilani), the LED chips will be packaged with phosphor coating and converted into white LED. "This Rs 46 crore worth LED chip fabrication project aims to develop about 100 types of LED chips in different sizes. The target for luminous efficacy of the LED chip is 25-50 lumens/watt," he adds. Joint effort by CSIR laboratories National Physics Laboratory (NPL), New Delhi, is the nodal laboratory for developing inorganic and organic LED chip. Besides NPL, four other CSIR laboratories are involved in the project-CEERI, Pilani, is working on inorganic LED chip; Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI), Karaikudi, and Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, are developing organic LED; and Central Scientific Instruments Organisation (CSIO), Chandigarh, is developing lighting systems. Although the project was started in 2007, it has been a major challenge for the scientists to develop an indigenous LED chip technology, as limited resources are available to expand their knowledge base. Chip fabrication process Fabrication of an LED chip is a lengthy process and involves processes in different units such as designing, epitaxial material growth, reactive ion etching, n-type metallisation, p-type metallisation, electroplating, backside thinning and polishing, dicing, phosphor coating, packaging, etc. In the frontend process, single chips are used as substrates for epitaxy, and subsequently different epitaxies such as LPE, MOCVD and MBE are employed to foster multilayer and polynary thin film materials with different thickness. In chip fabrication, first evaporation is done according to the demands of the LED structural components and then metal electrodes on both terminals of the LED are made through photo lithographic and heat treatment on epi wafers. These are then cut into LED dices after substrates and polishing wears down. Dr Dhanavantri, however, says, "We are facing some technical issues in the fabrication of inorganic LED chips such as p-type doping in GaN layer, p-type ohmic contact, efficient light extraction, thermal management, substrate removal techniques, phosphor coating, etc, for high brightness white LEDs." Boost for packaging & manufacturing "After the R&D for fabrication of LED chip and material characterisation technique is over, the technology will be transferred to suitable Indian LED chip manufacturers and LED packaging companies," informs Dr Dhanavantri. Currently, many companies in India,like Kwality Photonics, Hyderabad,are packaging LED chips after import them from abroad. This indigenously fabricated chip will therefore, provide new avenues to LED packaging and manufacturing business. KVK Gupta, managing director and CEO, Kwality Photonics Pvt Ltd, says, "We are looking forward to collaborate with CSIR for packaging the fabricated chips." According to Dr Dhanavantri, patenting the chip is one of the key objectives of CSIR. "But

before that we need to achieve many milestones. Also, we need to work out the licencing policy," he adds. Another LED chip fabrication attempt Meanwhile, De Core Nanosemiconductor, led by a Punjab based techno preneur, Deepak Loomba, is setting up what it claims will be the country's first semiconductor chip plant, at Gandhinagar in Gujarat. The facility will

initially manufacture semiconductor chips for LED lamps. "We are setting up an LED lamp plant in Noida in two months, where these chips will be used. This will bring down the cost of our LED lamps," says Loomba. The company intends to invest Rs 900 crore on the Gandhinagar plant. The Gandhinagar plant will have the capacity to produce 400 million chips annually.