Intense Ltd, developer of next generation semiconductor lasers, systems and solutions, and Compound Semiconductor Technologies (CST) have announced that the two companies have completed a deal to consolidate their business operations in the UK.

CST has acquired the UK fabrication assets of Intense Ltd. in Hamilton, Scotland. As part of the deal Intense has taken a minority stake in the enlarged CST business and will complete the process of consolidating all of its product development and manufacturing activities into its New Jersey, USA facility in the first half of 2010.

 

The deal allows CST to consolidate its production activities into a world class facility in Hamilton, Scotland and also to extend its existing contract chip manufacturing and supply relationship with Intense. CST has signed a three year supply agreement for supply of chips to existing and new Intense customers and product lines.

 

Intense will gain substantial scale economies at its profitable US facility and will focus its resources on driving up the supply chain into increasingly high performance laser modules and systems for the defense, medical, print and industrial markets.

 

"This deal builds on the increasingly attractive economics of the foundry business model in the optoelectronics sector," said Neil Martin, CEO of CST. "It also affirms CST's long held belief in the 'pure-play' foundry. We are seeing solid growth in established markets such as FTTH and defense which has supported our expansion in the current recessionary period."

 

Martin continued, "CST's increase in design and production capacity following the deal with Intense will support further expected growth in our core markets and allow CST to develop new foundry offerings for emerging technologies driven by 'cleantech' applications in sensing, energy and medical markets. CST is investing heavily now to be ready to take advantages of new opportunities that will certainly emerge through the global economic recovery."

 

"CST is a strong and established partner in chip development and supply and will support Intense's long term growth plans," said Berthold Schmidt, CEO of Intense. "Intense has, of course, retained ownership of its renowned QWI laser technology and will focus on its expansion into more of our product lines working in close partnership with CST. The deal with CST also allows Intense to consolidate its product line development and manufacturing activities into one world class site in New Jersey, US. This will drive considerable scale economies and further enhance our US margins and profitability. We expect to complete the consolidation of the UK product lines in close cooperation with our valuable customers during the first half of 2010."

 

About Intense

Intense Ltd., headquartered in Glasgow, UK, and with a central manufacturing line in North Brunswick, New Jersey, US, is a leading provider of single and multimode monolithic laser array products and integrated high power laser diodes. The company's patented innovations in Quantum Well Intermixing (QWI) and Asymmetric Waveguides (AW) generate uniquely high power, brightness, and reliability. This, combined with innovative integrated solutions, high volume manufacturing facilities, delivers unsurpassed product quality and value to customers in the print and imaging, defense, industrial, display, and medical markets. For more information, visit http://www.intenseco.com.

 

About CST

CST is a 'pure play' semiconductor foundry specializing in the design, development, and manufacture of discrete and integrated III-V opto-electronic devices, based in Glasgow, UK. Since 1999, CST has provided specialist foundry services to clients in the communications, defense, medical, energy and instrumentation markets. The company offers full product support from design to manufacturing, levered off a comprehensive library of qualified fabrication processes and a suite of high performance device platforms. Services range from blue sky research and development of novel optoelectronic devices, through to second source volume supply of mature, commoditized product. All activities are carried out within an ISO9001:2008 qualified environment. Today, CST serves both fabless and vertically integrated customers in the UK, US, Europe and Japan, and is recognized as a flagship project for the UK opto-electronics industry. For more information, see http://www.compoundsemi.co.uk.

 

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For further information, contact:

 

Kevin Laughlin, VP Global Business Development

Intense Ltd.

1200A Airport Rd.

North Brunswick, NJ 08902

+1 732-249-2228

Email: kevin_laughlin@intenseco.com

 

PR Office:

Shari Worthington, President

Telesian Technology Inc.

49 Midgley Lane

Worcester, MA 01604 USA

(508) 755 5242

Email: sharilee@telesian.com