Custom LED solutions created from the bare die stage to exactly meet customer requirements

ESCATEC, a European provider of contract design and manufacturing services, is using a novel workshop concept to dramatically reduce the time taken to go from concept to prototype for LED-based products. 

Wolfgang Plank, ESCATEC’s MOEMS department process engineer, explained, “We have developed the workshop concept to fast track the development of a new product.  We have a meeting room beside the Future Lab where we meet with customers who explain the concept of what they want.  We can then brainstorm ideas to work out possible designs and the best ones can be prototyped in the Future Lab there and then.  They are evaluated and the design refined until the customer is satisfied.”

Since launching, ESCATEC has used this workshop to successfully prototype a product in just a day on several occasions.  This makes the exercise very cost effective for the customer especially as ESCATEC’s Future Lab is in its Swiss facility, which is centrally located in Europe so that the visit can be done in a day trip.

“One of the secrets of our success in the Future Lab is that we start from the bare LED die,” explained Wolfgang Plank.  “This enables us to create custom solutions to exactly meet the specification of the project rather than LEDs that are already packaged and only available in a limited number of variations.”

By starting from the bare LED die, ESCATEC can customise the solution with regards to the size of the package, the shape of the beam so that there are minimal losses, and the wavelength of the light along with its intensity.  This freedom of design enables the LED solution to be highly efficient, appropriately cooled and optimised for the required power consumption. 

As a specialist in pioneering the use of LEDs, ESCATEC has built up an extensive, reliable sourcing network for base materials, from dies to custom glues and from silicones to special semiconductors to create modules and assemblies.  This enables ESCATEC to offer customers almost limitless possibilities for custom solutions to suit most requirements, volumes, and price points.