Cree history

The new LED went into production in the summer of 1990, and by October Cree was shipping one million of them every month.

In 1992, for example, federal government monies accounted for around 72 percent of the $595,000 Cree spent on research and development.

At the beginning of 1993, Cree also had research contracts with private industry, including Motorola and General Electric Corporation.

In 1994, it acquired the Hong Kong-based Color Cells International and transformed it into a new Cree subsidiary, Real Color Displays.

The company reported a milestone in its blue laser research in June 1997 when it successfully built an electrically pulsed gallium nitride-based blue light laser with a lifetime of more than an hour.

Furthermore, its stock was selling for $27.50 a share, its production facilities were running at about 80 percent capacity, and the company had grown to approximately 275 employees and expected to add more in the 1999.

The latter half of 2000 had been one of the best half years in Cree's short history, with sales rising by 67 percent and net income doubling.

2001: Cree introduces MegaBright blue and UV LED's and the Schottky diode.

Sixty-five percent of all Cree's sales in 2002 were made to international customers; the Malaysian market alone accounted for 23 percent in 2002, supplanting Japan as Cree's largest national market.