IQE has over 30 years experience in the epitaxial growth of compound semiconductors.
All of IQE’s products can be traced back to four core materials families: GaAs, InP, GaSb, and GaN. Often referred to as III-V materials, IQE’s core materials are the fundamental building blocks for advanced semiconductors. These materials have key performance advantages over silicon, which has traditionally been the semiconductor industry mainstay. Compound semiconductors operate very efficiently in high frequency, high power applications and are very efficient emitters and detectors of light.
In order to harness the full power of compound semiconductors, they must be grown as highly ordered, single crystals through a process known as epitaxy. IQE is the only company that has mass production capability for the two epitaxial growth technologies for III-V compound semiconductors: Metal Organic Chemical Vapour Deposition (MOCVD) and Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE). Operating in vastly different pressure regimes, these techniques are complementary and allow IQE to unlock the full potential of these materials. For Group IV materials, IQE uses Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) a technique that is analogous to MOCVD but with different precursors.
III-V Materials: Named based upon the positions of the constituent elements in the Periodic Table
MOCVD: Epitaxial growth at high pressure
MBE: Epitaxial growth in ultrahigh vacuum
