From 'Semiconductor Today'

29 July 2024

BluGlass highlights progress in June quarter

BluGlass Ltd of Silverwater, Australia — which develops and manufactures gallium nitride (GaN) blue laser diodes based on its proprietary low-temperature, low-hydrogen remote-plasma chemical vapor deposition (RPCVD) technology — has given an update on its progress in its fiscal fourth-quarter 2024 (to end-June), including the following highlights.

IP transfer to European wafer developer

As announced on 8 July, BluGlass secured a AUS$1.93m payment for the transfer of non-laser-based intellectual property (IP) rights to its European wafer developer customer. Developed by BluGlass under a paid foundry services contract since January 2022, the IP relates to gallium nitride growth techniques on the customer’s specialty wafers. The agreement excludes BluGlass’ proprietary RPCVD, device, or laser IP. BluGlass’ foundry services agreement with this customer is ongoing, focused on developing GaN applications on specialty wafers.

“Our epitaxy expertise is a key competitive advantage, complementing our laser business and enabling us to partner with a broad range of industry players on custom GaN solutions,” says CEO Jim Haden. “We’re continuing to establish ourselves as a partner-of-choice, offering the flexibility to scale foundry services for non-laser applications and development projects to meet specific customer product requirements. We look forward to supporting our long-term foundry customer with their ongoing needs,” he adds. “This IP licensing agreement is a good example of additional opportunities available to BluGlass, providing non-dilutive capital while we scale our laser device and development project revenues.”

ME Commons’ CLAWS Hub progress

BluGlass says that it has continued to deliver on all quarterly milestones under its contract with the US Microelectronics Commons’ Commercial Leap Ahead for Wide Bandgap Semiconductors (CLAWS) Hub. The firm remains on track or ahead of schedule for its fourth-quarter base-year deliverables.

North Carolina State University (NCSU) CLAWS Hub director Dr Fred Kish was a plenary speaker at the 2024 International Conference on Compound Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology (CS MANTECH), presenting on the CLAWS' wide-bandgap semiconductor development objectives and achievements including BluGlass’ GaN distributed feedback (DFB) laser development.

While BluGlass has yet to receive a positive or negative update on its CLAWS project proposals, work is continuing on its core development program and this year’s call for topics. BluGlass reckons that its CLAWS participation has increased its visibility with hub members and the broader quantum sensing and high-speed communication communities.

Customer engagement

BluGlass says that, during the quarter, it continued to engage with its existing laser customer base while also progressing discussions with multiple potential customers, and supporting new orders.

BluGlass is also working with partners on tender applications for large contracts, which could have the potential to generate significant revenue over both the short and long term, initially from product development projects and then from follow-on production contracts.

DFB performance updates

In April, BluGlass published a technical white paper highlighting performance improvements of its GaN DFB lasers, which have demonstrated what is claimed to be industry-leading side-mode suppression ratios (SMSRs) with power output over 100mW, operating at single-frequency over a range of current densities.

GaN-based DFB lasers are not commercially available in the near-UV and visible spectrums. BluGlass’ visible DFB laser demonstrations have achieved near-single wavelengths with extremally narrow full width at half maximum (FWHM) wavelength distribution and high SMSR, which is the suppression of undesirable wavelengths. These properties are critical to ensure the precise and stable operation required for atomic stimulations and sensing, notes BluGlass. The compact size and wafer-level fabrication of GaN DFB lasers make them suitable candidates to help quantum applications scale up in volume and scale down in size, for commercial use in next-generation applications such as quantum computers, in-flight LiDAR, robotics, and atomic clocks.

Financials

For fiscal fourth-quarter 2024 (to end-June), BluGlass has reported record quarterly revenue of $2.78m, including revenues from the NCSU CLAWS contract, foundry services and IP transfer for the European wafer developer, and laser orders.

The firm has delivered three consecutive years of revenue growth, reflecting the early benefits of its growth strategy and growing laser project, foundry service, and laser product revenues.

Including salaries, materials and fabrication costs, BluGlass’ quarterly R&D expenses were $2.2m ($2,178,000 for laser diode product development and $29,000 for RPCVD development). Payments to related parties were $108,000, comprising chair and non-executive director fees.

At the end of the financial year, the cash balance was $5.43m, before the receipt of the $1.93m IP transfer received in July, NCSU CLAWS receivable of ~$670,000, in addition to its expected R&D rebate of $5.5-5.7m for development work completed in fiscal year 2024.

Outlook

BluGlass says that it will continue to focus on its commercial and technical roadmaps in fiscal year 2025, growing laser and project revenues, optimizing its Silicon Valley fab, and bringing new products to market. The firm reckons that it is well positioned for growth within the constrained GaN laser market, as it offers greater manufacturing and packaging flexibility as well as novel architectures that improve laser performance and facilitate next-generation applications.

In parallel, BluGlass is continuing to collaborate with industry and academic partners to develop new technologies, solve customer challenges, and support increased adoption of GaN across high-growth industries.