Technical Insight
Osram lays foundations of new LED plant (LED News)
Osram Opto Semiconductors has laid the first stone of a new facility for fabricating chips for LEDs, laser diodes and sensors. Located in Regensburg, Germany, the 40 000 m2 (430 000 sq. ft) site is due to begin LED production at the end of 2002, at a cost for the first construction phase of around 7120 million ($105 million). The Regensburg site was chosen primarily as a result of the region s skilled workforce, but the company says the proximity of LED chip fabrication to its R&D department in Regensburg was also a contributing factor. "By the time production is running we plan to have 1600 people working on this site, and we ll be creating around 500 new jobs," explained Osram president Wolf-Dieter Bopst. "The current site at Regensburg-West is not large enough to cope with the rapid growth in capacity. There are plans initially to run the factories in parallel, then switch production entirely to the new site at a later date."
