Thursday, October 24, 2013

Soraa Gets More ARPA-E Funding

Soraa, the LED lighting technolgoy developers which was spun out of U.C. Santa Barbara, reported today that it has been awarded several million dollars in funding from the Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy (ARPA-E). According to the company, the funding comes as part of a four year, $3.2M project to develop GaN substrates for use in power switches. Soraa develops gallium nitride (GaN)-based LED and related technology, which was originally developed at UCSB by professors Shuji Nakamura, Steven DenBaars, and James Speck. Soraa is now based in Fremont, California. Soraa already had an existing $4.75M contract with ARPA-E for developing ammonothermal bulk gallium nitride (GaN) substrates for LEDs, vertical power devices, and next-generation power electronics. The company was founded in Goleta in 2008.