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Spire Corporation engages in the development, manufacture, and marketing of products in the areas of solar, biomedical, and optoelectronics in the United States and internationally.
In the solar area, the company develops, manufactures and markets specialized equipment for the production of terrestrial photovoltaic modules from solar cells. The Company's equipment has been installed in approximately 190 factories in 46 countries. The Company also provides custom and building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) modules, stand-alone emergency power back up and photovoltaic systems integration services using technology developed by the company.
In the biomedical area, the company provides value-added surface treatments to manufacturers of orthopedic and other medical devices that improve the durability, antimicrobial characteristics or other material characteristics of their products; develops and markets coated hemodialysis catheters and related devices for the treatment of chronic kidney disease; and performs sponsored research programs into practical applications of advanced biomedical and biophotonic technologies.
In the optoelectronics area, the company provides custom compound semiconductor foundry and fabrication services on a merchant basis to customers involved in biomedical/biophotonics instruments, telecommunications and defense applications. Services include compound semiconductor wafer growth, other thin film processes and related device processing and fabrication services. The company also provides materials testing services and performs services in support of sponsored research into practical applications of optoelectronic technologies.
Solar Equipment and Solar Systems
Spire's equipment spans the full process for fabricating photovoltaic modules including: Sorting solar cells into performance groups; Assembling and soldering strings of cells interconnected with metal ribbons or ‘tabs’; Completing the module circuit by soldering bus ribbons to connect the strings together; Cutting polymer, fiberglass, and back cover to length and assembling them with the glass and module circuit in preparation for encapsulation; Laminating the module assembly and curing the encapsulating polymer; Final assembly, including edge trimming, installing an edge gasket and frame, and attaching a junction box; Performing a high voltage isolation test to guarantee voltage isolation between the cell circuit and the module frame; and Electrically testing the module performance by measuring a current-voltage curve under simulated sunlight.
The Company provides the necessary equipment and training for implementing these process steps as individual equipment items and as fully integrated production lines. The Company also provides materials to support the manufacturing activities of its customers on an ongoing basis.
Spire solar systems provide clients with grid-connected distributed photovoltaic (PV) systems and custom modules to meet their demand for solar electricity. The business is primarily a system design and engineering service whose team of experienced professionals offers complete project design, management, installation coordination, and customer service.
Spire Biomedical
Spire Biomedical is both a manufacturer of medical devices and a provider of advanced medical device surface treatment processes. Spire Biomedical's medical device business develops, manufactures, and sells products for vascular access in chronic kidney disease patients. Spire Biomedical's surface treatment business modifies the surfaces of medical devices to improve their performance.
Spire Biomedical's line of long-term hemodialysis catheters is defined to combine high level performance with increased catheter placement options. The Company added a heparin-coated catheter to its catheter product line in 2006. This catheter has been demonstrated in invitro and animal studies to reduce catheter clotting, a significant complication in hemodialysis vascular access.
The company offers its medical customers a family of process services utilizing ion beam technologies to improve both the surface characteristics and the performance of medical devices. The Company's surface modification technology services employ proprietary Ion Implantation and Ion Beam Assisted Deposition (IBAD) techniques to improve the performance of medical components.
Spire's customized surface treatments meet various needs, including reduced friction, wear and abrasion, infection resistance, enhanced tissue and bone growth, increased thromboresistance, conductivity, improved radiopacity and the improvement of other performance characteristics. Spire-treated products include orthopedic prostheses (such as replacement hips, knees, elbows), catheters, guidewires, ear-nose-throat devices, vascular grafts, and other specialty medical devices.
Bandwidth Semiconductor
Bandwidth Semiconductor (Bandwidth), the business unit of the company's optoelectronics business segment, operates in a semiconductor foundry and fabrication facility in Hudson, New Hampshire equipped with metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) reactors and fabrication equipment. The company’s fabrication facility has been designed to have the flexibility to engage in quick-turn research and prototyping as well as for economical full-rate volume production services in three primary areas: MOCVD epitaxial wafers, device foundry services, and thin film circuits. The company’s MOCVD epitaxial wafer services include a range of compound semiconductor epitaxial structures fabricated to its customers' designs or in some cases to its own designs.
The company’s epitaxial engineers work with customers to develop and improve proprietary structures for specific applications. Typical applications include: Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSEL), optical waveguides, high power edge emitting lasers, photocathodes, high electron mobility transistors (HEMT), field effect transistors (FET), ‘PIN’ photodetectors, avalanche photo-detectors (APD) and other gallium arsenide-on-silicon, lattice mismatched indium gallium arsenide photodetectors, strained quantum well and other compound semiconductor material structures. Typical OEM devices the company fabricated include single-element photodetectors, photodetector arrays, VCSELs, edge-emitting lasers, thermo-photovoltaic (TPV) cells and communications-quality light emitting diodes (LED).
The company’s thin film circuit services include the fabrication of custom structures, chip resistors and resistor arrays to customer orders using thin film technology on alumina ceramic, aluminum nitride, ferrite, glass, quartz, sapphire and silicon substrates using various metals and alloys.
In August 2006, Bandwidth entered into a five-year manufacturing agreement in which it would be the exclusive supplier to Principia Lightworks, Inc. (Principia), of semiconductor wafers, enabling Principia, a Woodland Hills, California firm, to begin high volume production of its patented device, an electron beam pumped vertical cavity surface emitting laser (eVCSEL) as a light source for production display applications, including rear-projection consumer televisions. Bandwidth would manufacture epitaxial wafers which will be further processed by Principia to produce red, blue, and green colored lasers.
History
Spire Corporation was incorporated in 1969.
