A Germany based research project coordinated by Osram Opto Semiconductors and six other partners from science and industry reported its achievement of developing optimized approaches for manufacturing small LED chips and packaging technologies.

The research project, titled “InteGreat” was a consortium research project comprising seven organizations including Osram Opto Semiconductors, Osram, the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Systems and Device Technology (IISB), the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration (IZM), Würth Elektronik, LayTec AG and Mühlbauer GmbH & Co KG. Combining the know-how from academy and industry, the project aimed to investigate novel approaches to produce LED by looking into the manufacturing process to find potential areas for optimization. The project was conducted from December 2014 to February 2018, and the four years research has led to innovative wafer level packaging and planar interconnect technology.

(Image: Osram)

One of the breakthroughs in planar interconnect technology was the replacement of the bond wire with a thin flat metal connection, which moves the surface emitter to the surface of the package. This results in direct lighting and the improvement of efficiency and luminance to save the cost during operation.

The project also successfully demonstrated functional full-color video wall modules with a 1mm pixel pitch, which can be applied to large-format video walls as well as ambient lighting and sensor system. With modular structure of the project comprising four work packages, many achievements of the project can be adopted directly into product development and production.

(Image: Osram)

Frank Singer, Predevelopment Group Leader at Osram Opto Semiconductors commented,“The results of the InteGreat research project represent a major advance for the future of LEDs. Our powerful consortium of partners from science and industry has delivered extraordinary achievements in three years. Once again we have been able to demonstrate the powers of innovation in Germany as a center of scientific know-how.”