Nichia, which expects to become the first volume supplier of InGaN-based blue-violet laser diodes, next month will sample a 400-nanometer violet semiconductor laser with a lifetime of about 10,000 hours and a constant output power of 5 milliwatts. Production is expected to begin soon after sampling commences.

Nichia has already presented papers on laser diodes with lifetimes of 10,000 hours when operating at 2 mW output power. For commercialization, Nichia has improved the structure between the sapphire substrate and the laser diode structure.

The DVD Forum said a short wavelength laser in the blue or shorter range is the key component for a third-generation DVD-RAM disk with a capacity above 15 Gbytes.