Mar 30 2007
IQE plc, the leading global supplier of advanced wafer products and wafer services to the semiconductor industry, has secured two 12-month development contracts worth in aggregate over $2.4m during 2007. The Group also today published its preliminary results for the year to 31 December 2006 which showed revenues up 55.2% to £32.4m (2005: £20.9m) and a gross profit of £2.5m (2005: loss £0.8m) – see separate statement.
The contracts have been awarded to develop materials for use in next generation of ultra high speed integrated circuits (IC).
One contract is focused on the development of Strontium Titanium Oxide on Silicon epi-wafers (STO/Si) using IQE’s state of the art molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) systems. IQE will further develop STO/Si deposition by MBE in order to provide world-class compositional and surface quality control as a pre requisite to future high volume production.
The other contract is to develop advanced material structures for increased processing speed for future ICs.
These awards add to the current R&D contracts currently being serviced across the Group, bringing the total awards to date for delivery in 2007 to almost $US5 million.
Dr Drew Nelson, IQE Chief Executive, commented:
“We plan to aggressively pursue the metal-oxide on Silicon market where we offer unique and superior solutions for these advanced state of the art materials systems. Our entry into this market is important as it further diversifies the Group’s product portfolio and underscores our position as the global leader in advanced semiconductor wafer production and R&D.”