Compound Semiconductors

A University of Florida professor is hoping to position GaN devices as robust and inexpensive electrical monitors for diabetes, renal failure and prostate cancer. Electronic detection of so-called biomarker molecules could accelerate disease diagnosis, and GaN transistors are one of the cheapest options available to achieve this. That's what Fan Ren of the University of Florida reckons, and he’s recently made his case by detecting a biomarker that signals acute renal failure down to 1 ng/ml. At this level, the researchers say that their device could be useful for preclinical and clinical applications. In a November 26 Applied Physics Letters paper, Ren and his collaborators modified a GaN high-electron mobility transistor (HEMT) from Nitronex by attaching kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1) antibodies to it. When KIM-1 is exposed to the transistor it then remains attached to the antibodies, affecting electron mobility and hence the current passing through the HEMT. KIM-1 is a molecule...

Weather radar is one of the few areas in which electron tubes still dominate solid-state electronics, but this is set to change thanks to a system from Toshiba. The world's first weather radar that uses a high-power semiconductor module, based on GaN, has been installed at Japan’s Nagoya University. Toshiba Corporation says that its GaN field effect transistors (FETs) allow it to manufacture systems without the electron tubes that have previously been used in weather radar transmitter modules. 21st century weather radar The initial 9 GHz radar has been made for Nagoya's Hydrospheric Atmospheric Research Center using Toshiba’s existing X-band GaN FET technology, and came into operation on November 28. The conglomerate will produce further individual X-band GaN radars to order and will also use its C-band FETs to make radars that operate in the 5 GHz range. A Toshiba spokesperson said that the development of semiconductor weather radar was made possible by its GaN products, becau...

High-efficiency triple-junction cells based on GaAs are again the key as Delft's Nuon Solar Team wins the Panasonic World Solar Challenge for the fourth year running. A team of students from Delft University in The Netherlands won last month's Panasonic World Solar Challenge using a car covered with GaAs-based solar cells. Nuon Solar's car, the Nuna4, completed the 3000 km race across Australia in 33 hours, beating its closest rival by 1 hour 36 minutes. The vehicle's top speed was 137 km/h and its average speed over the whole race was more than 90 km/h. Along with other solar cars, Nuna4 had to compete under extreme weather conditions as well as navigate between other traffic on the road from Darwin to Adelaide, including kangaroos and Australia's notorious road trains. "This race shows the public that not only can a car run on solar power, but also that it is fast," Tine Lavrysen, team spokesperson, told environmentalresearchweb . "Most people belie...

SAN JOSE, Calif. -New LED-backlit LCD displays of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world's largest provider of thin-film transistor, liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panels, are now available in large premium-model, full-HD TVs at major U.S retailers for the holiday season. The new panels enable a huge jump in the dynamic contrast ratio from between 5,000:1 and 25,000:1, to 100,000:1 and even 500,000:1, for the clearest images on the market today. Available in 40-inch, 46-inch, 52-inch and 57-inch diagonal screen sizes, Samsung's new "local dimming," LED (light-emitting diode) technology provides a brightness level of 450nits, and reduces power consumption by as much as 30 percent. "Increasingly, consumers are craving the theatre movie experience at home and local dimming LED backlighting is a highly innovative and energy-efficient way to achieve theatre-like TV picture clarity," said Scott Birnbaum, vice president, Samsung LCD Business. Depending upon the...

HILLSBORO, OR (USA) - December 3, 2007 -TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc (Nasdaq: TQNT), the world's largest GaAs foundry supplier, today introduced TQBiHEMT, its latest foundry process for wireless/RF design engineers. This new manufacturing capability combines two of TriQuint's previous processes, offering designers one technology to integrate previously incompatible functional blocks onto a single die, reducing part count, saving board space and improving overall system costs. TQBiHEMT is well suited for highly integrated front end radio modules typically found in wireless applications with high data rates and frequencies. These types of applications require a semiconductor process which allows front end functional blocks to be optimized individually. TQBiHEMT enables the optimal integration of high power amplifiers in HBT on the same die as pHEMT low noise amplifiers and pHEMT switches, while remaining a cost effective design solution. "GaAs is a key technology for infrastr...