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Ardmore firm manufactures LEDs, adds staff [The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City]
(Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Feb. 14--ARDMORE -- An eight-year-old technology firm here, which previously has focused on the research and development of high-end infrared sensors for night goggles, missile guidance systems and other products largely for the U.S. military, plans by the end of February to start manufacturing light-emitting diodes (LEDs), or low-voltage alternatives to incandescent lights.
Amethyst Research Inc. is teaming with Lightwave Photonics of Minnesota to make LEDs, said Rob Kuester, facilities supervisor for Amethyst.
"They'll be like the little Christmas lights or lights on ball caps sold at Lowe's," he said. "But our lights will be brighter and better than any known light."
Lightwave, Kuester said, will spray paint chemicals at one-atom thickness on silicon chips, or the base material for semiconductors, and then ship them to Ardmore, where ARI will use a molecular beam epitaxy machine to put on two more elements -- gallium and nitrate -- before shipping the chips back for final production.
Because of its new manufacturing efforts, Amethyst in May leased an additional 6,000-square-foot building at 123 Case Circle in an industrial park on Ardmore's western border near Lone Grove, Kuester said. The firm leased an adjacent 5,000-square-foot building in November 2008, after being based for more than 2 1/2 years in an incubator of the Ardmore Development Authority.
Formed in 2004, the company first focused on using a patented hydrogenation process to improve the production efficiency, or fill the defects in, infrared semiconductor chips, Kuester said. How Amethyst gets the hydrogen deep inside the chips, versus just the surface, is proprietary, he said.
Then, scientists used an ion beam accelerator to develop a second technology that, based on the concentration of hydrogen, helps map, or identify, the defects on chips, Kuester said. The company eventually plans to make the chips. But it will be another year before those resources are brought online, he said.
Business manager Nancy Stewart said Amethyst has 25 employees and one paid intern from the National Science Foundation. Annual salaries average $60,000 to $65,000, Kuester said.
Stewart said the company added three new professionals -- Michael Aragon, Bill Balliette and Henry Yuan -- this month.
Aragon moved from Sachse, Texas, to serve as vice president of technology development. Formerly with Triune Systems and Texas Instruments, he brings experience in advanced silicon technology, circuit design and business development.
Balliette, from Austin, Texas, will support the launching of Topaz Thermoelectric, a spinoff of Amethyst to develop thermoelectric coolers for the infrared sensor and high power laser and electronics market. Most recently chief operations officer of Faradox Energy Storage, a maker of high temperature capacitors, Balliette has more than 17 years of experience in operations, business development, marketing and manufacturing engineering.
Yuan has worked for Amethyst since January 2011 through a partnership with Oklahoma State University, focusing on circuit design and simulation for the development of high-sensitivity thermoelectric focal plane arrays.
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(c)2012 The Oklahoman
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