Media Contacts:
Bob Lynch, president of Nitronex Corp., 919/807-9100 or Kevin Potter, NC State News Services, 919/515-3470 or kevin_potter@ncsu.edu

May 19, 2000

NC State Start-Up Firm Nitronex Receives Large Capital Investment

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Nitronex Corp., a North Carolina State University spin-off company that provides gallium nitride semiconductor products, has received a seven-figure initial investment led by Alliance Technology Ventures, an Atlanta-based venture capital firm.

Nitronex officials and NC State Chancellor Marye Anne Fox met this month to announce the funding and to commemorate the recent intellectual licensing deal between Nitronex and the university.

Michael R. Slawson, a general partner in Alliance Technology Ventures, said the well-known venture capital firm invests in only about a half dozen companies each year, after considering roughly 2,000. "Gallium nitride has the potential to become the next important compound semiconductor," Slawson said, "and these guys at Nitronex have the technology and the know-how that really enables them to have a strong competitive position."

In January, Nitronex also received a $500,000 investment from Centennial Venture Partners, a $10 million venture capital fund started by NC State to help launch start-up companies affiliated with the university. Administered by the N.C. Technological Development Authority, Centennial Venture Partners is one of only a few capital funds nationwide investing specifically in start-up companies associated with a university.

"This is a real exciting kick-off, and they’ve made great progress so far," said Glenn Kline, managing director of the Centennial Venture Partners fund. "There’s still work to be done, but it’s a real exciting time."

Four NC State alumni founded Nitronex in 1999 to commercialize gallium nitride-based semiconductor materials and devices. The technology was initially developed in cooperation with Dr. Robert Davis, Kobe Steel Ltd. Distinguished University Professor of Materials and Science and Engineering, and Dr. J.F. Schetzina, director of NC State’s Solid State Physics Laboratory.

Nitronex was the first start-up company to open an office in and to "graduate" from the small business incubator at NC State’s Centennial Campus. In January, the company moved to a facility near the university, where it is constructing a wafer fabrication clean room. The number of Nitronex employees has tripled to 15 since the beginning of the year.

Mark Crowell, NC State’s associate vice chancellor for technology transfer and industry research, said Nitronex offers the perfect example of how to move useful university-based research from the lab to the marketplace. "This is the model we ought to be striving for over and over again," he said.

In February, the company and the university signed an intellectual property license agreement covering seven methods and processes related to growing gallium nitride thin films for semiconductors. NC State has submitted patent applications to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office related to those research advances.

Nitronex focuses on the development of advanced gallium nitride (GaN) deposition and wafer manufacture technologies for the production of wafers, transistors, photodetectors, light emitters and laser diodes. The company’s patented Pendeo™ technology generates high value-added wafer products and device solutions for the semiconductor industry.

Gallium nitride is a new semiconductor material expected -- when deposited on silicon wafers -- to result in far faster semiconductor operation than the current technology of silicon or gallium arsenide alone. That’s because Pendeo™ eliminates defects in the semiconductor that slow electrons.

Nitronex is set to begin producing this proprietary technology at its new headquarters, at 616 Hutton St. in Raleigh. Company officials explain that the technology will enable the development of a previously inaccessible area of semiconductor products by allowing increased yields on existing gallium nitride-based products, such as blue light emitting diodes (LEDs), transistors or laser diodes.

More information about the company is available on the Web at www.nitronex.com.

-- potter --

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