News: LEDs
16 February 2022
CrayoNano secures UV-C LED chip supply for ramp-up to volume production
CrayoNano AS of Trondheim, Norway – which develops and manufactures semiconductor components based on patented and proprietary nanomaterials technology – has executed the first high-volume supplier contract, with an undisclosed manufacturer, for over 1 million units of UV-C LED packaged chips targeted for the water disinfection market following its controlled market entry plan. The contract also secures long-term capacity ramp-up beyond 10 million units/year manufacturing. CrayoNano says that this is a strategic partnership to develop its product roadmap according to market and customer requirements.
The supplier is a specialist in semiconductor packaging technology and will manufacture a customized, high-performing package specifically for CrayoNano’s UV-C LED product series. The product specifications are co-designed with key strategic customers, targeted at water disinfection in point-of-use and point-of-entry applications. The product will be made available to selected key customers for a controlled market entry.
“The current industry bottleneck with the challenging supply of chips has been a key concern for CrayoNano,” says CEO Jo Uthus. “We have now proactively resolved the situation and continue our efforts on disrupting the UV-C LED market, where we see growing demand for our solutions.”
The initial manufacturing volume will at first utilize commodity, industry standard chip technology and components combined CrayoNano’s optimized custom packaging and assembly technology. This is in preparation for the integration of CrayoNano’s nanowire chip architecture through testing and validating the supply-chain and driving a controlled market entry to enable a quality and reliability-focused UV-C LED product series.
Following market entry and customer qualifications, CrayoNano aims to implement its proprietary nanowire and hybrid materials chip architecture into the same optimized package using the same assembly and test processes, positioning it for a leading cost-performance position in the market, it reckons.
The first order of pilot products will be delivered to customers in first-half 2022. The pilot order will be used by customers to benchmark and qualify the product prior to placing orders. The first volume shipment is planned for availability to selected customers in third-quarter 2022.
Due to the substantial lack of UV-C LED products in the market, CrayoNano has obtained signed letters of intent (LOI) from what it calls industry-influencing OEMs and system integrators (tier-1 and tier-2). “With our supply-chain partners we are now in a position to execute a ramp-up and commercialization of our nanowire and UV-C LED technology according to our business plan,” says Uthus. “Through this, CrayoNano will contribute to solving the lack of supply in the UV-C LED market.”
CrayoNano and SemiLEDs to co-develop nanowire UV-C LED chips
