January 04, 2008
Braggone Funded To Boost Efficiency in Flat Displays, Chips, and Solar Cells
Braggone, an Oulu-based company that has come up with a way to improve the way light is handled in flat panel displays, solar cells, and LEDs, among other things, has received a "multi-million dollar" amount of funding from Tekes, a state-backed organization.
The funding is meant to boost commercialization of its flat panel display and chip-targeted products, but Braggone is also promoting its coatings tech as a boon to photovoltaic manufacturers and manufacturers of bright LEDs, typically used in lighting applications e.g. automobile headlights and traffic lights.
Since the coating can be used as an alternative to chemical vapour deposition (CVD), or as an additional product improving step in fabs that already have CVD installed, the company has a good position to attract revenues sooner rather than later.
We think that the company's BizDev man, Paul Williams, has a pretty good cleantech pitch (increasingly bright LEDs are seen as a clean or green technology):
“Essentially, we are minimizing the optical loss in solar cells and modules..... We are capturing as much light as possible in the cells by taming the physics. With the new materials from Braggone not only do we have the capability to reduce the optical loss in the cell or module, but we can also improve the efficiency of electrical conversion within the cell. This has the real benefit to our technology users of driving down their production cost per Mw output.”
Braggone Receives Multi-Million Dollar Funding to Commercialize Nano-Engineered Polymer Technology for Semiconductor, Solar Panel and Flat Panel Display Manufacturing
TEKES, the Same Funding Agency That Backed Nokia, Invests in Optoelectronics Company for Materials That Can Be “Custom Tuned” for Application Needs
OULU, Finland (Business Wire EON/PRWEB ) January 3, 2008 -- Braggone, the optoelectronics materials company, has received multi-million dollar funding from TEKES (The National Technology Agency of Finland) to commercialize their polymer materials for worldwide commercialization. TEKES is the same funding agency behind Nokia’s dramatic success in the cell phone market.
We've had great success working in collaboration with chemical companies and equipment manufacturers to fine-tune and optimize the physical and application specific characteristics of these polymers
Semiconductor devices and flat panel displays are primary targets
Braggone’s proprietary material technology allows for custom tuning of the inorganic-organic polymer material properties to suit specific applications. These flexible yet stable materials coat or print onto substrates at greater efficiency, lower temperatures and higher yields. The company’s current materials products are applied in digital displays used in mobile phones and televisions, advanced semiconductors, digital cameras, photovoltaic panels, LEDs and memory for PCs and MP3 devices. The TEKES funding is specifically targeted for taking the materials production and sales from the lab to commercial scales. These materials are part of an intellectual property portfolio of 17 filed patents, four of which have already been granted.
The research for the semiconductor industry has resulted in a unique set of materials that are nano-engineered siloxane compounds for silicon containing anti-reflective coatings (ARCs).
“We’ve had great success working in collaboration with chemical companies and equipment manufacturers to fine-tune and optimize the physical and application specific characteristics of these polymers,” commented Dr. Yrjö Ojasaar, Braggone CEO. “Due to that collaboration and now with the additional funding from TEKES, we are on a rapid path to commercialization, as we can deliver PV manufacturers with increased performance and reduced costs all in one turnkey solution.”
Nano-engineered materials can also revolutionize solar cell and panel manufacturing
Out of this same polymer research, Braggone recently announced a new product line that greatly increases the efficiency of solar cells and allows manufacturing facilities to cost-effectively increase their capacity. The custom designed compounds can dramatically reduce reflection from glass and silicon, and therefore, deliver substantially more light to the active regions of the solar cell, resulting in higher efficiencies. Even when compared to materials such as silicon nitride, the Braggone materials can cut reflection by half and costs associated with deposition tools by even more than half. By incorporating Braggone’s unique materials into the manufacturing process, the costs of manufacturing solar cells can be dramatically reduced. Braggone tunes the optics of the cell by spray, slit, spin, or dip coating layers of molecularly tailored material, rather than having to use expensive chemical vapor deposition (CVD) tools.
Ojasaar added: “Our technology and materials for solar cells will make the dream of sub-one euro per peak watt manufacturing costs a reality. We can replace the CVD batch process, expensive capex, and expensive operating costs by simply spraying, slit or dip coating the anti-reflective and hydrogenation coatings in a rapid and cost-effective atmospheric in-line process.”
About Braggone
With offices located in Oulu, Finland, London, UK, and Hong Kong, SAR China, Braggone is an innovative technology company focused on the manufacturing of advanced optoelectronic and information electronic materials and components. Braggone’s portfolio of materials and processes are utilized to improve performance and facilitate production for various component and system structures. Through fundamental materials development and advanced process applications, Braggone works closely with its clients to increase their products’ performance in flat panel displays, semiconductors, LEDs and solar cells. Additional information can be found at www.braggone.com.
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October 29, 2007
Semiconductor Design Cycle Wizard
German startup Process Relations has raised €700K from the HighTech Gründerfonds, and co-investors, to commercialize a software application that enables semiconductor and MEMS device developers to track and document and integrate data along the entire design cycle: from idea to experimental to test stage, including the final integration into the fab process system.
It's targeting a 'pain point', we'd say. And it gives the following as an example. When an engineer leaves a development project, his expertise and memory of who did what, when, why, and how goes with him. And when a new engineer joins the team he/she will be overwhelmed with too much unstructured data.
Based on this reporter's experience in the electronics industry, an application like this has potential beyond chipcos. The trick is making it palatable for engineers to take the time to use it.
View Process Relations
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August 21, 2007
Beneq Raises €3M For Coatings LEDs
Beneq, a Finnish startup that develops reactors to apply so-called functional coatings on metals, glass, and ceramic has raised €3M [via Unquote.com] from Via Ventures, a Danish venture fund, and Inventure, which is a local fund (formerly known as Holtron Ventures) that has invested in some names you'll recognize like MySQL, Fastrax, and Xelerated.
The startup, whose tech creates films that measure in the nano range, has some traction, as the VCs say. It reportsseveral contract wins for equipment to apply anti-tarnish coatings. And earlier this year it started in the lab to develop processes to coat semiconductor wafers, in particular substrates for GaN LEDs, the kind that industry uses to make high-brightness blue lasers and white lights. The venture received an earlier funding round from Inventure.
Read Beneq's news
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August 16, 2006
Swiss Synova Raises Capital For Semiconductor Equipment Expansion
Synova, a Swiss company that sells equipment to cut up wafers into chips using an innovative water jet-guided laser technology, said it had raised financing SFr 10M ($8.1M) from "Swiss banks".
The type of financing was undisclosed, but we doubt it is equity financing as most Swiss banks dropped their venture capital funds four years ago.
Synova, founded in 1997, and based in Lausanne, said it will use the capital to open up a couple demo and development centers, one of which will be in Silicon Valley. Its technology is used to squeeze more dies out of a wafer, which is important in pricey LED chips and some of the higher end semiconductor devices.
There are two other ventures that are based in Europe that offer competing technologies, ALSI, which is backed by Falk Strascheg, a Munich-based venture capital and institutional investor, and XSIL, has been funded by its founder, Peter Conlon, who sold his last venture to Agilent for €100M in cash.
The press section of the websites of these have not been updated in over a year, so we cannot tell you if business is booming or if they are losing out to Synova in this niche of the semiconductor manufacturing equipment sector.
Read - Synova Secures CHF 10 Million (USD 8.1 Million) to Drive Global Expansion Efforts (prnewswire)
