Contrel Technology, which makes TFT-LCD, PV and LED inspection and testing equipment, will invest in production of PSS (patterned sapphire substrate) using soft mask photolithography technology developed by a R&D team under National Cheng Kung University.
Contrel said it will establish two subsidiaries for the PSS production in southern Taiwan.
Currently, yellow-light photolithography technology is generally used to produce PSS, but yield rate is low, the R&D team said. Yellow-light photolithography may produce only 4-5 6-inch PSS with high-resolution patterns in an hour, but usually only about two of them are without defects. Soft mask photolithography technology can turn out 40-50 substrates without defects, the R&D team indicated.
Yellow-light photolithography technology incurs production cost of US$80-100 per PSS while the production cost using soft mask photolithography technology is only about half, the R&D team stressed.