LPE was founded in 1972 as a producer of chemical wet benches and small CVD reactors. Starting from 1987 LPE focused his activity to silicon epitaxial reactor for power devices. From then LPE has established various satellite companies in the USA, in Czech Republic, in France, in Japan and in 2004 in China. During these years, LPE has become the worldwide leader in the epi reactors for Power devices.

In 2005, LPE reactors were the equipment of choice for IGBT device for the hybrid car. LPE has 87 people of which 7 directly involved in R&D. LPE's production strategy concentrates on reactors dedicated to severe applications such as Schottky, Power Transistor, PowerMos, Rectifier, very thick epi layers for IGBT devices grown in a single process; NPN, patterned wafers and others on arsenic doped substrates, CMOS, Buried Layers on Sb doped substrates and Mixed Technology.

LPE is an OEM with some experience in factory automation. LPE’s products are already used in automated production lines around the world.

Role

LPE is participating in WP2 and will acquire data in the reactor installed in Infineon Villach in accordance to the WPs specifications and supply the data for analysis to WPs, feedback to the reactor.

For LPE being a SME, the Customer approach is the best tool for reaching the impact goals of the project.
Moreover, LPE will stress the role of SemI40 as driving force that has permit to develop and test the new software

Key contribution

LPE wants to define a way to feedback the reactor with the acquired and analyzed data in order to improve the process and the maintenance procedures to reduce downtime. All of this in an automatic mode without the human intervention.