With the increase in the construction of AI data centers, the light harvesting module is a key component for data centers, and demand is rapidly flying. Gao Yongzhong, chairman and president of IET, a semiconductor manufacturer of Sanwujia, mentione...
With the increase in the construction of AI data centers, the light harvesting module is a key component for data centers, and demand is rapidly flying. Gao Yongzhong, chairman and president of IET, a semiconductor manufacturer of Sanwujia, mentioned when he was interviewed by the "New Science and Technology News" that the emergence of mobile phones has changed the market size of Sanwujia semiconductors. Now "AI business may be larger than mobile phones."
Intelei did not adopt the mainstream MOCVD (metallic organic chemical gas phase deposition) technology, but chose the MBE (molecular beam epitaxial) path, and Gao Yongzhong laughed and called it "because I only understand this." He said that when he was studying for a doctorate, he and his two brothers worked together to create a set of MBE equipment to develop MBE silicides. Finally, he found that the silicon-based IC industry had too high requirements for quality and vacuum, which made him think about how to maximize MBE and finally decided to enter the semiconductor materials of three or five groups of compounds.
Gao Yongzhong pointed out that the greatest charm of the three-five-square-group materials lies in the diversity of combinations. When you open the periodic table of elements, you will find that the third and fifth-group elements can be combined to produce materials such as arsenicide (GaAs), phosphine (InP), ternary arsenic (InGaAs), quad-square arsenic phosphorus (InGaAsP). As for the real change in the industry scale of the Three Five Groups, the mobile phone market was popular in the late 1990s, which led to the demand for RF components, especially the two key components of PA (power amplifier) and Switch (switch). "In the early 1990s, we said that an MBE supported the Three Five Groups, but after the mobile phone appeared, the entire situation changed completely."
▲ IET Chairman and President Gao Yongzhong. (Source: Technology News)
However, in the early stages of the company's strategy, Gao Yongzhong gave up the investment in the GaAs HBT PA market. Although the market was large, this technology was more suitable for MOCVD growth. He estimated that if the technology and cost cannot be competed, the investment in trading will cause harm, especially in the environment where the labor and operation costs of American factories are higher. Therefore, he decided to attack products that "only MBE can do, and the gross profit is relatively high". He believes that as long as he makes a low-level product, there will be some business results.
He also decided to enter the three-five-group materials such as GaSb and phosphide, and cooperated with Coherent (Finisar in that year, before the merger with II-VI), and became the only company in the world with the ability to produce VCSEL in the production of VCSEL.
Without price battles, MBE helps IET to move towards high-end LeicSpeaking of the technology of MBE, Gao Yongzhong explained that its operation method is more like the "optical fast gate". It uses the fast gate to control the growth of elements of the three and five clans. Although the growth rate is slower than MOCVD, it is not conducive to large-scale production like this technology, but it has extremely high accuracy in thickness control and interface quality, and is cleaner and low pollution. Most of them produce pHEMT (pseudo-type high-speed electronic field effect transistor) components.
In addition, MBE has an irreplaceable advantage, which is the "Doping of the High and Low Constant Control of the Substance". Gao Yongzhong Example: In nitride materials, compared with MOCVD, the N-type compaction of MBE can be increased to 100 times, which can improve contact resistance. When the computer is converted, the contact resistance can be reduced by five times. For the conversion efficiency of power supply such as data centers, saving 1% power is a huge cost difference.
Therefore, Intelevision currently focuses on the difference between high-level applications and technology, with the goal of introducing high-level MBE technology into volume and continuously reducing costs. Up to now, IET has complete epitaxial and self-made machine capabilities, which also makes the company's accumulated high technological irreplaceable.
As mainstream optical module products on the market have entered the 100G or even 200G high-speed transmission generation. Currently, the epitaxial of Coherent's 100G and other mainstream optical and electrical large-scale optical and electrical factories are handed over to Intelei R&D and OEM. It also makes Intelevision acknowledged as another "hidden version of silicon photonics manufacturer" or even a hidden champion.
In addition to the main PD business, IET has begun to focus on other potential high-level application markets, such as Quantum Dot Laser and high-speed surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) for silicon photonic light sources. The former has established a special team and machine development, while the latter is expected to be a high-speed light source, which can achieve more simplified and low-power high-speed data transmission. This will also be a new demand under the development of AI and cloud data centers.
Speaking of the future opportunities for MBE, Gao Yongzhong said that for an EPI House, Intelei not only makes epic, but also develops equipment. Now many MBE customized machines cannot be bought in the market, and no one is willing to develop them. However, since he is a user, he knows best how to modify and adjust to truly meet the process needs.
In order to improve the competitiveness of the order, Intelevision launched the second phase of the new factory and transformed it into a complete production base, with the expected production capacity increase by about 50%. The new factory that could accommodate 24 machines can be placed at most 36 machines after upgrading. At the same time, the machine renovation industry has been fully launched, so that the old equipment can even surpass the performance of new machines after adjustment. And it can be modified into different materials of three or five groups for epitaxial machine applications.
In terms of MBE machine layout, Gao Yongzhong also mentioned that n-Type high-concentration nitride (GaN) "secondary epitaxial" MBE machine is specialized, because customers often have a long cycle length due to distance and process connection, which makes mass production difficult.
By performing secondary epitaxialization of GaN HEMT (high electronic mobility transistor) with the main structure grown from MOCVD, it can optimize the key Source & Drain contact area, effectively reducing contact resistance and improving high-frequency performance, as a new solution to improve the power conversion components of AI data center and high-level communication applications.
Due to the fact that the current AI servers have been under long periods of AI training, high temperature and high current will bring system power consumption problems. Secondary epitaxial technology will help future AI server power components will have higher conversion efficiency, reduce the energy consumption and heat dissipation needs of power modules, and increase system stability. In addition, the GaN HEMT high-frequency components used in the communication domain in the past have been used to be used in the communications domain, as their high frequency potential is often limited by contact resistance and load injection efficiency. Through n+ GaN secondary epitaxial technology, it will be more suitable for high-frequency communication components in the 6G generation.
Therefore, the mainstream process of GaN component devices will be towards the development of "Hybrid" (hybrid) structure in the future. Gao Yongzhong pointed out that the ideal cooperation model is to provide customers with one-stop Turnkey solutions, that is, Intelevision is responsible for the construction, maintenance and operation of the machine, so that customers can focus on application and product development and become suppliers to promote technology.
The orders are highly visible this year, and the InP substrate supply bottle will reach a new high after the end of the year.Looking ahead, Gao Yongzhong expects that the annual performance of 2025 is expected to break through the historical high in 2022 and set another historical high. Although this year is still limited by the supply bottle of the InP substrate, which affects delivery time and capacity expansion, the overall AI market demand is strong, and the shipment targets of major customers have doubled in the past two years. Therefore, it is expected that the revenue in the next two years will be expected to achieve significant growth. The company will also coordinate the InP substrate supply chain and expect to keep up with the order demand for high-speed AI computing in the second half of the year.
Although the current geopolitical politics is still unstable, under the trend of AI, copper retreat, and high-speed transmission, Intellei has chosen a large-scale competition path different from the mainstream. It does not cost price or rely on scale, but uses MBE and a dragon to solve solutions, and deeply cultivate the high-level epitaxial field, with the goal of 100G, 200G and even the next generation of 400G and higher-speed data transmission needs, and continues to play the role of the key driver behind it.
