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To: Mike Buckley who wrote (13320)	12/26/1999 10:51:00 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Here is a front page article in the LA Times today about how the economic experts blew all of their predictions for the last 10 years. latimes.com reading it is a nice way to feel good on a Sunday Morning.

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (13320)	12/26/1999 11:34:00 AM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 54805

Is there a market to which which CREE can sell their crystals to be used in products made by other manufacturers? If so, is a value chain rallying around CREE's SiC? short answer. yes! long answer. cree presently has two known major products: SiC, high quality silicon carbide crystals and wafers. LED's that cree makes from from SiC. several colors are available. the value chains for these two products are extensive and growing. i believe other products exist and are being sold to the military, but the details remain classified including who may actually doing the manufacturing. from www.cree.com the major products that cree markets presently are... SiC Substrates and Epitaxy The physical and electronic properties of SiC make it the foremost semiconductor material for short wavelength optoelectronic, high temperature, radiation resistant, and high-power/high-frequency electronic devices Super Bright LED Chips Cree's CB series of super bright LEDs are a new generation of solid state LED emitters which combine highly efficient InGaN materials with Cree's proprietary SiC substrate to deliver excellent price performance for high intensity blue and green LEDs. Blue LED Chips Cree's Super blue LEDs are a new generation of solid-state blue LED emitters which combine highly efficient GaN with Cree's proprietary SiC substrate to deliver the ultimate price/performance for high intensity blue LEDs. the last 2 are cree's in-house finished SiC product production. the first is the crystal itself which is being used by a number of companies/orgs for a variety of purposes...some examples of uses of both SiC and LED's by others: the LED's are being sold to numerous companies including siemens, nokia, osram, and others for use in a variety of consumer, commercial, and industrial lighting applications . i believe siemens is also buying SiC wafers..i do not know how they are being used. ABB is, i believe, purchasing SiC for use in power station applications. c three (CTHR) is using cree SiC to manufacture moissanite jewelry. departments of defense, navy and air force have substantial contracts with cree...the details are classified...but here are some hints. (Durham, NC, June 29, 1998) - Cree Research, Inc. (NASDAQ: CREE), the world's leading manufacturer and supplier of silicon carbide (SiC) wafers and SiC-based semiconductor products, announced it has demonstrated a power diode with the highest blocking voltage ever reported for a silicon carbide device and with a switching efficiency an order of magnitude greater than similarly-rated silicon diodes. The company also announced it has demonstrated a microwave transistor, formed using gallium nitride on a silicon carbide substrate, that achieved the highest power density ever reported for a solid state field effect transistor operating at radio or microwave frequencies. These results were presented last week at the prestigious Device Research Conference sponsored by the IEEE Electronic Devices Society. Silicon-based power diodes are currently used in a wide range of applications including industrial motors, power conditioning systems and power distribution networks. The diode fabricated by Cree exhibited a blocking voltage of 5900 volts, and the switching efficiency made possible by Cree's silicon carbide technology produced losses that were only 5% of the power lost during operation of comparable silicon devices. This greatly enhanced efficiency is due in part to the fact that the voltage-blocking epitaxial layer in Cree's device was only 50 microns thick, whereas equivalent silicon diodes require layers 500 microns thick. In addition to power savings, SiC power diodes promise other advantages over silicon devices in many applications. These advantages include reduced cooling requirements, higher possible switching frequencies and greater reliability at high temperatures. The quality of the SiC epitaxial material grown by Cree's materials group also contributed to the results achieved by its power diode. Although thinner than that used in similar silicon diodes, the epi material in Cree's device is considered thick compared to layers previously grown on silicon carbide substrates, and the growth of such thick layers required the development of new processes. Olle Kordina, the Cree scientist who heads its "thick epi" team, commented: "The results reported by our device scientists are particularly gratifying since they show our team's thick epi is of exceptional quality. The ability to produce high quality epi is essential to fabrication of high power silicon carbide diodes, and Cree is at the forefront in this arena." The microwave device Cree demonstrated was equally impressive. Cree scientists reported achieving a power density of 6.8 watts per millimeter in a device operating at 10 gigahertz, with a power-added efficiency of 52% and 10.7 dB of associated gain. This power density is the highest ever reported for a solid state field effect transistor operating at radio or microwave frequencies and more than twice that reported by any other group developing similar devices. The high efficiency and gain of the Cree device at this frequency are also substantially greater than the results reported by other groups developing high power gallium nitride-based transistors. Power density refers to a measurement of the output power of the device relative to device size. Although Cree's demonstration device produced only one watt total power, the high power density attained with its gallium nitride-on-silicon carbide design should enable the development of larger devices with higher total output power at a given frequency. Transistors of the type demonstrated by Cree have potential applications in high power amplifiers for military radar and communications systems operating in the X band range and at higher frequencies. The higher output power made possible by Cree's design could permit the development of radar and communications systems with substantially increased operating ranges. i believe ibm is close to announcing their world theater project...a world-wide super billboard display project that i believe will use cree led's. several USA municipalities including palm beach county, the area where i live, are using cree led's in traffic control signals. several months ago an announcement said china is using cree's led's for traffic lights. i do not know who is manufacturing the lights. many major universities, worldwide, purchase cree's SiC crystals and wafers for research. NASA purchases cree crystals. cree LED's have replaced the light bulb and are currently used for the primary lighting in volkswagon and audi dashboards. autos manufactured in the us are expected to switch to led's within 1-3 years. the major us auto light bulb mfr said they have an led program on-going...they are a cree customer. (i cannot recall the company name at the moment) cree led's are just now penetrating the cell phone market. according to cree ir, the display board you see behind the announcers on monday night football uses cree led's. they did not name the mfr. other uses for SiC...if you are still interested, and want to know more about SiC uses click on the following link...when you get there...click on each picture...be sure and click on each one. i recall posting this link here before. i think. please remember i am the one with the great memory that doesn't last long. lerc.nasa.gov cree is widely believed to be very close to a commercially viable blue laser. meaning it will cost < $15 and have a life of at least 10,000 hours. a blue laser will increase the storage capacity of DVD's by several factors. it offers significant communications device enhancements as well. unclewest