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Single crystal contacts. Sapphires from Russia: how Monocrystal holds the world leadership

About the Russian plant "Monocrystal", which is recognized as the largest manufacturer of artificial sapphires in the world.

Recall that the plant located in Stavropol makes substrates from grown artificial sapphires, which are used for the production of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The same sapphires are used to make glasses for the screens of some smartphones and “smart watches, including the Apple Watch.

We will tell you what interesting things have happened in the company over the past couple of years.

1. In the spring of 2016, they tried to steal the production technology

In the spring of 2016, as a result of a special operation against Chinese industrial intelligence and specialists of Chinese industrial espionage, it was found that they were trying to steal the technology for the production of artificial sapphires.

Spies tried to recruit agents among the employees of the enterprise.

The result of what happened was trial period (2.5 years) for the organizer of the fraud, the rest of the defendants received suspended sentences.

2. State support and expansion of production by 1.5 billion rubles.

In November last year, according to the Industrial Development Fund (IDF), it became known about the plans of the Monocrystal plant to implement an investment project worth 1.5 billion rubles.

The expansion should allow the production of artificial sapphire crystals weighing from 120 to 400 kg.

Monocrystal will provide over 1 billion rubles. from its own and borrowed funds, the rest of the plant will receive in the form of a soft loan for 280 million rubles at 5%.

3. At the end of 2016, a production record was set

At the very end of 2016, a record crystal by its weight was grown at the plant.

Marketing Director of Monocrystal Lyudmila Zubova:
“At the end of 2016, we were the first in the world to produce a sapphire crystal weighing 350 kg. This size allows us to mass produce large diameter sapphire wafers while reducing unit costs and improving product quality. "

At the end of the year, the company's share of the sapphire LED market was 33%.

The company's sapphire revenues in 2016 were $ 56.8 million, 18% lower than in 2015. The decrease in revenues was due to a significant drop in sales prices for sapphire.

4. December 2016 - an impressive shipment figure

According to a press release, in December 2016, the plant shipped 5 millionth plate 4-inch diameter (FIE).

Oleg Kachalov, General Director of the Monocrystal plant, noted:
“The shipment of the 5 millionth 4-inch plate is the best proof of customer demand for our plates. Monocrystal products allow our customers to reduce production costs and strengthen their positions in the highly competitive market of manufacturers of light-emitting diodes. "

In addition, Monocrystal was one of the first enterprises in the industry to produce 6-inch plates.

5. Autumn 2017 - the industry leader

It was announced in October that Monocrystal takes a stake 44% in the world market sapphire for LEDs. Over the past six months, according to the independent analytical agency Yole Development, Monocrystal's share in the world market has grown by 12%.

In other words, almost every second LED in the world is made from sapphire components made in Stavropol.

Monocrystal is the only company supplying sapphire to all regional markets: Europe, Korea, China and Taiwan. Today the company exports more than 99% of its products to more than 25 countries of the world.

We have something to be proud of.

Stavropol "Monocrystal" has strengthened its leadership position global market in your niche. Most Russian companies can only dream of this, but the life of the main player in the world market is not at all so rosy.

Founder and owner of the Energomera concern Vladimir Polyakov

“Two residents of the city of Stavropol created an organized group, which involved workers from one of the regional enterprises,” the press service of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Stavropol Territory said in March. For money, these people transferred information constituting a commercial secret to “another organization”, causing damage of 14 million rubles, the press release says.

The affected enterprise was not named. But the local agency Regional Reporter, citing a source in power structures clarified that it was the "Monocrystal" plant: the accused tried to steal his technology for the production of artificial sapphires, and the criminal case itself was the result of "a special operation against Chinese industrial intelligence and specialists of Chinese industrial espionage." Monocrystal grows artificial sapphires and makes sapphire substrates from them, which are used for the production of light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The same sapphires are used to make glasses for the screens of some mobile phones and watches, including smart Apple Watch. The factory exports almost all of its products and is the largest sapphire producer in the world, occupying 20 to 30% of this market, overtaking companies from China, Taiwan, Japan and the United States.

“The last five or six years have been trying to steal Monocrystal technology, but to no avail. So far we do not see exact copies of technologies, "says Vladislav Tropko, investment director of Rusnano, which bought 5% of Monocrystal in 2011 for $ 42 million.

They did not talk to RBC about Chinese spies on Monocrystal, but they keep secrets here: they give out stickers at the checkpoint, they need to stick the camera on the phone. But before the arrival of the RBC correspondent, the stickers ran out. “Go like this,” they waved their hand in the security booth.

62-year-old Vladimir Polyakov is reluctant to communicate with the press, speaks in a low voice and thinks for a long time before answering each question. He is not at all like the innovator we might imagine from the glossy success stories of American tech entrepreneurs. Polyakov is the founder and owner (he owns 86.1% of the shares) of the Energomera concern, which includes Monocrystal. In 2015, he was ranked 192nd in the Russian Forbes ranking with a fortune of $ 400 million, he is not in this year's rating.

Half of his adult life, Polyakov worked for the defense of the country: for about 13 years - at the Gomel Radio Plant, where he began as an equipment adjuster, and ended up as a deputy chief engineer. In 1989 he became the chief engineer of the Stavropol plant "Signal", in 1994 he went into business. Concern "Energomera" started with the production of electricity meters and during the 1990s, mainly in the Stavropol Territory, bought shares of small factories, which in Soviet time worked for the defense industry and experienced problems with the sale of products. One of them was the analog plant of electronic devices and materials, which was engaged in the growth of monocrystalline silicon and the production of silicon wafers for microcircuits and transistors, and unsuccessfully tried to establish conversion. Polyakov bought a controlling stake in Analog for $ 1 million.

In 1999, "Analog" was transformed into OJSC "Monocrystal", in which Polyakov singled out five enterprises. Three, including those related to silicon, had to be closed a few years later, two more - the production of sapphire and resistive pastes - had no sale in Russia, they had to be brought to the world market, "where, of course, no one was waiting for us," recalls Polyakov. “There was no ingenious foresight in my decision to go into sapphire, I just wanted to use every opportunity to load the equipment available at the plant,” he adds.

Girls best friends

“Analog” learned how to make sapphires back in 1984, and the technology of growing single crystals by the Kyropoulas method used by the plant has been known since 1926. Crystals are grown in growth machines - large metal tanks with displays. Aluminum oxide is poured there, heated in special conditions up to more than 2 thousand degrees Celsius and after a few weeks a finished sapphire is extracted - the so-called bule. Then it is cut out, cut into cylinders and briquettes, and they, in turn, into plates, which are polished in special devices.

Now the largest consumers of sapphire wafers, or substrates, are LED manufacturers, but in the late 1990s this market was still in its infancy. And "Monokristall" started with the production of sapphire glasses, which watch companies were ready to buy.

To get the job done foreign markets, Polyakov hired graduates of local linguistic universities, who at the same time had to work for some time at "Monocrystal" in working positions, mainly in operations technical control- "to stop being afraid of the product", then they learned to draw up contracts and customs documents. Polyakov sent those who passed this stage to foreign exhibitions.

“The beautiful girls looked good against the sapphire background,” recalls Polyakov. “First they came to see what kind of girls they were, over time, serious clients appeared.”

“At that time, LEDs were produced by unknown companies. Some of them will not be remembered now, but there are also those who have become market leaders over the years with a multi-billion dollar turnover. Both were our first customers, ”says Oleg Kachalov, general director of Monocrystal, who came to the plant in 2002. "In the first months, sales of" Monocrystal "were unconvincing and amounted to $ 5-10 thousand per month", - says Polyakov.

When the industry became interesting for large companies, some of them bought up small producers and continued to work with Monocrystal. This happened with the Taiwanese company Epistar, which absorbed all Taiwanese LED startups and has now become one of the largest manufacturers LEDs. But other giants such as Samsung and LG built this business from scratch, and relationships with them had to be built from the beginning. According to Katchalov, this process usually took two to three years. “The testing process itself takes about a year. But even before they start testing you, you have to build these relationships for about a year at all levels - from purchases and sales, then with technical specialists and ending with relationships at the top management level, ”he says.

The research company Yole Developpement names the Chinese Fujian San'an, the Korean Hansol Technics and Iljin Display, the American Caterpillar among the clients of Monocrystal. Monocrystal itself does not disclose its customers, but Kachalov claims that the plant is currently cooperating with six of the ten largest LED manufacturers in the world (mostly Chinese and Taiwanese companies).

About 70% of Monocrystal's revenue comes from LEDs, 25% from mobile electronics, protective glasses for cameras, glasses for fingerprint scanners, screens for Apple and Huawei smart watches, 5% - other goods, including glasses for ordinary watches and protective optics in lasers.

“I have said for many years that the day will come when we will wake up rich and famous, because the sapphire market will explode,” Vladimir Polyakov repeats. (Photo: Ivan Kurinnoy for RBC)

Up and down

Since the mid-2000s, the LED market has grown by 20-30% annually, driven mainly by the demand for LEDs used for lighting. But in 2010, there was a small revolution: Samsung first used LEDs to light up a TV screen. Other companies followed immediately, which caused a one-time shortage in the world market - prices for two-inch sapphire substrates for LEDs for the year increased almost fourfold - from $ 4.7 to $ 16.7.

The first years "Monocrystal" did not bring profit to Polyakov - it had to be subsidized through the production of meters. But in 2010 the plant increased its revenue by almost 3.5 times, to $ 89 million. “In two years we made a profit of about $ 100 million, recouped all our investments and invested money in the further development of production,” recalls Polyakov. On this wave, Monocrystal, following one of its main competitors, the American Rubicon Technology, planned to go public with a capitalization of $ 0.8-1.01 billion. In the same 2010, the company received a $ 10 million loan for five years from the International Finance corporation, and the UCP investment fund of Ilya Shcherbovich became the minority shareholder of Monocrystal.

The sharp rise in prices for sapphires attracted new players to the market: in China alone, several dozen companies engaged in the cultivation of sapphires were founded in a short time, and prices began to fall already in 2011, and in 2012 fell below the level of 2009 - to $ 3. 2 per two-inch plate. Due to market volatility, Monocrystal's IPO was canceled.

UCP left Monocrystal two years later: a Vedomosti source close to the fund claimed that the investment was “profitable” for it. In the summer of 2011, 5% of Monocrystal was bought by Rusnano for $ 42 million, which still owns this stake.

But prices continued to fall, and in the fall of 2014 the market experienced a new disappointment: Apple announced that it would not use sapphire crystal in the iPhone 6. The scale of the disaster can be estimated from just one fact: in July 2014, the market capitalization of the American company GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT), which was going to supply Apple with sapphire crystals for the iPhone, reached $ 2.8 billion. After Apple changed its mind due to the fact that GTAT was unable to make screens the right quality, the company filed for bankruptcy almost immediately.

In 2015, prices for sapphire wafers dropped to $ 2. So far, Monocrystal manages to hold the first place in the world market in terms of revenue. What is the Stavropol plant hoping for?

300 Kg

“At the very beginning, we came to the conclusion that the main thing in this industry is the ability to grow a high-quality sapphire crystal as large as possible,” says Katchalov. “We had the same equipment for growing as everyone else, and using the equipment, like everyone else, it is difficult to do something outstanding.”

All manufacturers of artificial sapphires use the same technology, but each is trying to increase the size of the grown boule. The larger the crystal, the lower the power consumption, and, consequently, the cost. Larger die can be cut into larger substrates: the industry has moved almost entirely from 2 "wafers to 4" substrates and is now moving up to six inches. Finally, there is a direct relationship between the size of a crystal and its quality: the larger it is, the clearer the crystal lattice.

Monocrystal began to develop its own growth units, and in 2004 their first generation was released at Energomera's production facilities. In 2015, the company grew a sapphire single crystal weighing 300 kg - no one has yet succeeded in surpassing the record: the closest competitor, the American Rubicon Technology, is stuck at the 200 kg mark, says Kachalov with pride. “Crystals weighing about 10 kg were grown on the Analogue,” he adds.

In an attempt to grow a crystal of a record size, GTAT also pierced, in which Apple invested more than $ 1 billion. After an agreement with Apple, GTAT planned to grow boules weighing about 290 kg, but before that the company only made growth furnaces, and did not try to grow crystals. As a result, according to the Wall Street Journal, the backyard of the GTAT factories resembled a "graveyard of boules" - the crystals were cracked and completely unusable.

“Entering the global market is difficult, but it is even more difficult to stay on it,” says Dmitry Loigas, technologist at Kama Crystal Technology, a company that recently started producing artificial sapphire in Naberezhnye Chelny. “To do this, we need to reduce the price every year.” In 2014-2015, the devaluation of the ruble played into the hands of Monocrystal. In addition, according to Kachalov, even before the change in the exchange rate, the gap in the cost of sapphires with the closest competitors at the Stavropol plant was more than twofold. According to the forecast of the general director of Monocrystal, prices will continue to fall in the near future - by at least 10% per year.

The race to reduce production costs has been going on at Monocrystal practically from the very beginning: every year it decreases by 30%, says Kachalov. There is an effect of an increase in the scale of production - since the moment of foundation, the capacities have grown several times (the company does not name the exact figure). But the company is counting on more than just production capacity.

Process improvement

The words that both Polyakov and Kachalov use in conversation more often than others are “ continuous improvement"And" production system ". The philosophy of kaizen, continuous improvement of processes, Polyakov borrowed from Toyota. He says that in the mid-2000s he realized that there was not enough Soviet experience, he needed to look for something new in the experience of other companies. Now at "Monocrystal" everyone has to continuously improve everything.

“The purchasing manager should get discounts, and the technologist should produce more product with fewer resources, make it better,” Kachalov tries to explain. “We are constantly thinking about how to spend less material, make it in a shorter time, and achieve higher quality. When this work is spelled out in the instructions, then you achieve a predictable high result. "

Polyakov himself spends four hours a day in kaizen teams with the plant's engineers. “We get together and solve creative problems. This is not a meeting, but a conversation, where the most important is not the one who is the boss, but the one who has an idea, ”he says.

As in other companies whose leaders are passionate about kaizen (in Russia, these include, for example, German Gref and Oleg Deripaska), Monocrystal has instructions for everything: from general policies describing global processes such as personnel management or sales, to standard operating cards, where each operation is described in detail - literally up to the scheme for finding the "On" button on the system unit.

Around 2010, Polyakov introduced a selection of the best and worst employees at Monocrystal - a “personnel differentiation” borrowed from General Electric. In addition to the main responsibilities, employees must make suggestions for optimizing their work or the work of the plant. If the offer is accepted, points are awarded for it. "Points can be earned for any process modification that improves something, speeds up or makes a profit," says a former employee of Monocrystal, who asked not to be named. - You can, for example, get points for improving your job description". Each year in the fall, the commission calculates the points. As a result, employees are divided into categories: A, B, B + and C. A is the "gold" reserve, C is the worst employees.

When asked what happens to the employees of category C, Polyakov says, slightly embarrassed: “We are not laying off anyone, we just announce to the employee that he is in category C and he has no great prospects in the company. As a rule, after this, people gradually leave. " Employees who fall into the worst category see things a little differently.

“They began to blame me on what I did not like and was not part of my duties. I said I didn't like it. They told me that I was in category C and they could fire me under the article, ”says a former employee of the plant. - They gave me a month to find a job, but I decided not to leave. The pressure began: God forbid you will be late or you will forget something! I got to the point that every day I wrote reports on what I was doing at work. As a result, I worked for three months and left: I'm tired of it. " Polyakov is sure that without a “production system” built at the plant, the technology race cannot be survived.

Light and darkness

The industry portal LEDinside describes the state of the market of components for LEDs in 2015 with the word "gloomy": according to a report by the consulting company Strategies Unlimited, the fault is oversupply and outstripping forecasts for a drop in prices. The analysts of the company believe that in the next five years the market volume in money terms will grow by no more than 4.5% per year.

“Most companies in the sapphire industry have been losing money over the past three years,” said Jerry Chen, general manager of Monocrystal in Taiwan, at a conference in Taipei this spring. According to him, during this time, three of the 12 leading manufacturers of artificial sapphires have left the market. Monocrystal sees new opportunities in this: according to Chen, in 2016 the company will increase its share in the world market to a solid 30% (he estimated the share in 2015 as “between 20 and 30%”).

Kachalov is confident that LEDs for lighting will be the main driver of the market. “LED lamps now account for less than 5% of the total market. But their share is growing, and this will continue for another five or six years, ”he says.

Now the lion's share of the LED market falls on the backlight in phones and TVs, says the director of scientific work GC "Inter RAO LED Systems" Dmitry Bauman. In his opinion, LED lamps are too expensive for a mass buyer, and sapphire substrates have little effect on the price of lamps. The main part of the cost of a luminaire is the power supply, housing, assembly, and their prices are decreasing very slowly. “The main reserve for reducing the cost of lighting fixtures is the growth in sales, and it will not increase until the lighting fixtures become significantly cheaper. Vicious circle"- says Bauman.

The smartwatch sector looks controversial: Apple does not publish data on Apple Watch sales. According to IDC, the company sold 12 million copies in a year, but analysts hoped for 20 million. Monocrystal and the entire market have one more hope - greatly cheaper sapphires can attract the attention of smartphone manufacturers. Now only the luxury manufacturer Vertu and Huawei use sapphire glass for screens, which have released a limited edition Huawei P8 smartphone with sapphire crystal for the Chinese market.

The release of mass-produced smartphones with sapphire screens would mean the explosive growth of Monocrystal, says Katchalov. According to him, a 5.5-inch sapphire screen for a smartphone now costs about $ 20. For mass products, this is expensive, says Evgeny Kuznetsov, Commercial Director"Vobis Computer" (Highscreen smartphones): "A smartphone screen is a sandwich of several layers, there is a" screen ", a touch panel and a protective glass. All together it costs $ 15-25. And here one layer - $ 20 ".

Polyakov continues to invest in the expansion of Monocrystal's capacities. The plant, he said, is making a "reasonable" profit: last year the EBITDA margin was 31%. “But the price of sapphire continues to fall. It is difficult to say how this year will end, ”he says. Answering the question: “What would he invest $ 1 billion in now if he had it? - Thinking and sighing, Polyakov replies: - I would only develop our agricultural segment: the most stable and profitable industry.

JSC "Monokristall" began production of artificial sapphire crystals of large and extra-large sizes, as well as sapphire six-inch plates, which are necessary for the further production of LEDs, smartphones and other high-tech products.

Today Russian company from the city of Stavropol occupies 50% of the world sapphire market for light-emitting diodes. The artificial sapphire will be exported to Germany, Switzerland, China, Hong Kong and Korea. The plant's products are used in the production of iPhone (home button and camera glass are made of it), light-emitting diodes for high-definition TVs, radio frequency switches for mobile devices and etc.

Due to its physicochemical properties, sapphire is an indispensable component for a number of high-tech applications. The sapphire crystal lattice is ideal for mass production of gallium nitride (GaN) light emitting diodes.

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Recent advances in the cultivation and processing of sapphire make this unique material available for promising new applications: from aesthetic dentistry to space station windows or high-frequency microcircuit substrates that are resistant to radiation.

High hardness of sapphire, its exceptional chemical resistance, low refractive index and melting temperature above 2000 ° C allow speaking about synthetic sapphire as a universal material of the future.

The plant in Stavropol has increased its production capacity by more than 70% and occupies 50% of the world market for artificial sapphire for light emitting diodes. The company intends to produce 60,000 six-inch wafers monthly.

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« Our plant has been operating in extremely competitive world markets for more than 15 years and has known many victories over world-renowned industrial giants and companies using unlimited administrative resources in their countries. Throughout this period, we relied only on our intellectual potential and the speed of development of competencies. We have learned to develop technologies and products faster than our competitors and have built an advanced production system aimed at continuous improvement of all business processes of the company. The volume of exports last year exceeded 5 billion rubles", - commented general manager JSC "Monocrystal" Oleg Kachalov.

Monocrystal JSC is rightfully considered the locomotive for the development of the sapphire industry: since 2016, the company has been using 300 kg sapphire crystals in batch production. In February 2017, the company unveiled a record-breaking sapphire crystal weighing 350 kilograms. Earlier, the company was the first to present to the market plates for LEDs with a diameter of 150, 200 and 250 mm, as well as optical windows with a diameter of 300 mm. During the modernization of production, the company has developed modern technological equipment, which has no analogues in the world. It will allow the production of crystals weighing up to 400 kg with a high percentage of the yield of material suitable for production of the final product. And most importantly, the cost of a crystal will be the lowest in the world.

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The products of Monocrystal JSC are in demand in the production of light-emitting diodes for backlighting high-definition TVs, displays, radio frequency switches for mobile devices, as well as viewing windows for high-temperature furnaces and watch glasses with high abrasion resistance (resistance to mechanical damage).

Chinese competitors were very interested in the secret technologies for growing artificial sapphires at the Monocrystal plant. So much so that they tried to steal the data and even recruited agents among the employees of the enterprise for this. Thanks to the vigilance of their own security service, all of them were exposed and criminally liable.

Concern Energomera, which includes JSC Monocrystal, started with the production of electricity meters and during the 1990s, mainly in the Stavropol Territory, bought shares of small factories that worked in the defense industry during the Soviet era and experienced problems with product sales. One of them was the analog plant of electronic devices and materials, which was engaged in the growth of monocrystalline silicon and the production of silicon wafers for microcircuits and transistors, and unsuccessfully tried to establish conversion.

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“Analog” learned how to make sapphires back in 1984, and the technology of growing single crystals by the Kyropoulas method used by the plant has been known since 1926. Crystals are grown in growth machines - large metal tanks with displays. Alumina is poured there, heated under special conditions to more than 2000 ° C, and after a few weeks, the finished sapphire, the so-called bule, is removed. Then it is cut out, cut into cylinders and briquettes, and they, in turn, into plates, which are polished in special devices.

In 1999, "Analog" was transformed into OJSC "Monocrystal", in which five enterprises were spun off. Three, including those related to silicon, had to be closed a few years later, two more - the production of sapphire and resistive pastes - had no sales in Russia, they had to be brought to the world market. There was no ingenious foresight in the decision to start working on sapphire, just the managers of the enterprise tried to use all the possibilities to load the equipment available at the plant.

It is difficult to enter the world market, but it is even more difficult to stay on it. In 2014–2015, the devaluation of the ruble played into the hands of Monocrystal. In addition, even before the change in the exchange rate, the gap in the cost of sapphires with the closest competitors at the Stavropol plant was more than twofold.

The research company Yole Developpement names the Chinese Fujian San'an, the Korean Hansol Technics and Iljin Display, the American Caterpillar among the clients of Monocrystal. Monocrystal itself does not disclose its customers, but experts say that the plant is now cooperating with six of the ten largest LED manufacturers in the world (mostly Chinese and Taiwanese companies).

Total vacancies in Stavropol from of this employer(including archived): 120

Attention: some proposals may refer to another division of the enterprise, not to the one indicated in the title. Check on the page for a specific vacancy.