AXT, a manufacturer of compound semiconductor wafer substrates, has announced that one of its largest Gallium Srsenide (GaAs) wafer substrate customers has formally qualified their new Gallium Arsenide wafer processing facility. This Tier-1 customer has among the highest quality, safety and environmental standards in its industry. Its confirmation is an important milestone for AXT’s manufacturing relocation and will enable AXT to meaningfully ramp production from the Company’s new locations to meet its customers’ needs over the coming quarters.
During the fourth quarter of 2019, AXT transferred its Gallium Arsenide crystal growth ingot production to its new manufacturing facility in Kazuo, a city approximately 250 miles from Beijing. Wafer processing for gallium arsenide was relocated to its new manufacturing facility in Dingxing, a city approximately 75 miles from Beijing. AXT began offering wafers from Dingxing for customer qualification in 2019 and began customer site qualifications later that year.
AXT’s new manufacturing sites are optimized for best-practice manufacturing techniques, and the Company has installed state-of-the-art equipment. Both are designed to meet and exceed the current rigorous safety and environmental standards in China. AXT now has capacity in place to meet today’s demand for a wide variety of high-end applications, with ample space to expand as demand increases and new applications come to market. AXT is now well-positioned to push its technology to new levels of performance required by current emerging applications, and to engage the marketplace with confidence and enthusiasm.
AXT began manufacturing its Gallium Arsenide substrate wafers in the Tongzhou district of Beijing, China in 2000. In 2015, the Beijing city government selected Tongzhou for its new municipal headquarters. Along with many other businesses asked to relocate their manufacturing lines in order to create room and upgrade the district, AXT was instructed to relocate its gallium arsenide manufacturing line.
