OUR TEAM
MANAGEMENT TEAM
VICENTE CALVO ALONSO
CEO, Founder
Vicente is an experienced professional with proven track in R&D and in the development of new technologies. During his 17 years of international work experience he has performed different roles for diverse industries. Before founding Comptek Solutions he worked as Principal engineer at Nokia in the Touch screen technology team and after that as Lead innovator in Microsoft, where he was responsible for scouting, developing and implementing new technologies for mobile devices. He holds a MSc in industrial engineering and Iis listed as inventor in 20+ patents.
PhD JOUKO LÅNG
CTO,Founder
Jouko holds a PhD degree in physics from University of Turku and has been active in the research of compound semiconductor materials and in materials surface engineering for almost a decade. During his research he has also designed and built his own reactors, equipments with which he and his team have discovered the novel process related to III-V compound semiconductors that gave origin to our Kontrox technology.
He has authored or co-authored approximately 30 publications and 10+ patents.
MARJUKKA TUOMINEN
Research Leader
Marjukka is a challenge-loving expert in semiconductor physics research with over 10 years of experience on developing Kontrox technology already from the beginning of her MSc and PhD studies at the University of Turku till the present day. She is a co-inventor of the patented technology and has a wide research experience also on other materials physics topics having co-authored over 40 scientific articles. She is also the main contact for ESG and quality management matters in the company
Our Vision
Compound semiconductor materials are delivering their promise to provide higher levels of power and operating frequency demonstrating that they are a true replacement for Silicon in many applications. In addition to their primary use in optoelectronic devices they play a major role in applications where performance / efficiency requirements are the driving forces such as RF power amplifier, Power switching or Concentrated Photovoltaics. However there are still challenges stopping us from getting all the benefit that these materials can offer.
At Comptek solutions we acknowledge that material and substrate engineering at atomic layer are the key technologies to enable a technology breakthrough to boost the efficiency of the compound semiconductor materials and to open new opportunities.
With the public financing support from:
Boosting the efficiency of compound semiconductor devices
EU SME phase I grant 837143
Members of the board
TIMO TIRKKONEN
Chairman of the board
Timo is a Co-Founder & Partner of Inventure. At Inventure, Timo focuses on the investment strategy and portfolio value creation. Timo is actively involved in crafting product and partnership strategies of our portfolio companies. He is managing the investments in Rightware, Detectify, Now Interact, Merus Power, and Spectral Engines. Previously, Timo acted as a private investor with Innocap Oy. Having started his career in the telecom sector with Nokia and Sonera, Timo has over 19 years of experience in coaching, managing and internationalizing early-stage companies.
MATTI HELLGREN
Executive Member of the Board, Sr. Business development advisor
Matti is Managing Director of the IoT Forge Foundation which is helping start-up and SME companies to speed up their innovation from idea to validation in IoT business. Over 80 companies have been have been using this opportunity during last 12 months. Matti has over 20 years of experience in leading global product development, product management and R&D work where he has hold several senior executive roles latest being Corporate Vice President in Microsoft Devices group and Senior Vice President in Nokia. Matti led technology strategies into businesses and products, collaborating with world leading technology companies and building teams around the globe. Matti was board member of Nokia China board and he has had several leadership team roles in strategy, portfolio and technology management and business teams in Nokia and Microsoft where he also was the head of country management team in MSFT Finland.
OUR TECHNOLOGY
Industry known problem
It is a known fact that in the multilayer semiconductor devices, the quality of the interfaces at atomic level between the materials determines the efficiency and quality of the semiconductor device itself.
Despite of the natural overwhelming properties of the III-V materials, their natural tendency to oxidize almost instantly when they are exposed to oxigen is limiting the performance of the semiconductor devices based on these materials. The oxidation layer appears as an amorphous structure with high density of electrically active defects that results in efficiency losses and also induces manufacturing yield loss.
A particular example of this situation could be in structures like a HEMT (high electron mobility transistor) where the channel materials is a III-V compound. In the interface between the iii-V and the gate insulator material (oxides) the oxidation of teh III-V happens either during the manufacturing process due to air exposure at a particular manufacturing step or because of the surface recombination with the oxide material used as gate insulator. The amorphous structure interface promotes the leak currents and thus the efficiency drop.
Our solution: Kontrox™
Comptek Solutions approaches this problem with novel quantum surface engineering processes that result in a crystalline and almost defect free surface of the compound semiconductors. The resulting structure is also estable under exposure to oxygen, ensuring that there is no further recombination. This is our Kontrox™ technology.
Compound semiconductor materials treated with Kontrox™ experience an improvement in the crystal ordering at the surface, reducing the amount of defects and increasing the material homogeneity. With this process we can achieve upto
98 % reduction of interface defect state density compared to industry standard method
< 2 × e11 defects cm-2 eV-1
Kontrox is a dry process, conformal, and easy to combine with existing epi-growth or other manufacturing processes.
These improvements in the atomic structures of the interface materials enable to narrow down the gap between the theoretical and the real efficiency levels of the devices. Due to the increased homogeneity of the material surface, and its stability under air exposure the manufacturing yields of subsequent processes is expected to be higher, thus reducing manufacturing costs.
Optoelectronics applications
Optoelectronic components include LEDs, image sensors, optocouplers, IR components, and laser diodes among others.
Optoelectronics applications problems arise from highly defective interfaces. LEDs have become the most rapidly growing lighting segment, therefore, improving the energy efficiency of LED light conversion just a percent or two, creates global huge power savings. Photodetectors have a performance limiting factor called dark current. Dark current arises from defective interfaces and defines the noise floor of the sensor and therefore the sensitivity sensitivity.
Radio Frequency applications
Leading edge high frequency performance can only be achieved with compound semiconductor technologies. Certain RF/µW applications are facilitated by GaAs/AlGaAs such as HEMT and HBT device technologies. The next generation wireless communication (5G) circuits and optical data transmission is an application field expected to gain a massive increase and where completely novel solutions are needed to overcome the barrier currently preventing a transition to next generation circuits.
Power electronics applications
III-V compound semiconductors are essential for greater efficiency in switching power converters which are utterly critical to renewable and portable electrical energy. Technologies like GaN MOSFETs are able to have higher voltage ratings than conventional silicon MOSFETs or BJTs. Improving sligthly the efficiency of these materials will enable higher power savings and components of smaller size and with smaller cooling requirements.
Enabling the next generation CMOS processors
The most notable upcoming application for III-V compound semiconductors is in the next-generation digital electronics and logic circuits (i.e. microprocessors). There is a consensus among the key industrial players that the transistor channel material has to be changed from silicon to III-V compound semiconductor materials in order to further enhance the electrical performance of the transistors. This application demands superior quality of the interface between the gate oxide insulator and III-V material as this interface has the most crucial role in the CMOS operation.
Concentrated Photovoltaic applications
Concentrated Photovoltaics is another application where the performance is the key, aiming at efficiency levels ~40% compared to ~20% of traditional solar cells. These levels can only be ensured by using multijunction cells of III-V compound semiconductors materials. These complex structures of several multilayer combinations open possibilities to novel surface engineering processes aiming at reducing interface defect densities.