The Aixtron order was placed in the fourth quarter of 2009, and when the systems are delivered in the period between third and fourth quarters of 2010, they will be used for production of GaN-based blue/green LEDs.
The local Aixtron support team will commission the new reactors at Neo-Neon's new five-story facility at the mainland China production plant in Guang Dong.
Ben Fan, Chairman of Neo-Neon International Ltd., said that the company has "been enjoying the benefits of our existing Aixtron MOCVD systems for over a year now. In order to comply with our future expansion plans it is time to further increase our capacity."
Neo-Neon first indicated its intention around two years ago to become a vertically-integrated LED manufacturer, from chips to lighting products.
In July this year, Neo-Neon placed an order for its first TurboDisc K465i MOCVD system from Veeco, the US-based rival of Aixtron.
Veeco said that the system would support Neo-Neon's LED manufacturing capacity ramp at its JiangMen, China factory. Veeco received the order during the second quarter of 2010.
Veeco has also recently announced MOCVD system orders from China's Tsinghua Tongfang, Taiwan's Arima Optoelectronics Corporation, and Elec-Tech International , another Chinese company planning to install 130 MOCVD systems in its two new LED factories in Wuhu and Yangzhou, China.
Jurgen Yeh, Chief Technology Officer of Neo-Neon, said, "Neo-Neon plans to expand our LED wafer output seven-fold over the next three years. We have decided to include Veeco's K465i MOCVD system in our plans due to its proven high productivity as well as the recent uniformity and repeatability advances that Veeco has achieved. We intend to move quickly to expand our position in the general illumination market, and require supplier partners that can keep pace with our plans."
To fund its expansion, Neo-Neon, which is traded on the Hong Kong stock exchange, has recently raised NT$2.06 billion (US $64 million) through a share issue in Taiwan.
Neo-Neon specializes in flexible LED-based "Neon-like" products, and styles itself as the world's largest decorative lighting manufacturer. It recently made its entry in the LED streetlight market by releasing the LED High Power Street Light series. Solar-powered versions are also available. Neo-Neon has developed an optical enhancement technique—its patent-pending "Lux Boosting Optical Technology"—to boost the luminosity of the LED Streetlight series by a gain factor of 50% on average.
