Plessey: exemplar of 21st century manufacturing
Plessey Semiconductors will be featured in a new website showing 21st century British manufacturing which will be launched 23rd April at a high-profile event in London.
www.madeherenow.com, the brainchild of former Financial Times manufacturing editor Peter Marsh, is looking to tell the story of modern-day industry through a series of articles, pictures and video on four exemplar companies.
Plessey was chosen for developing new ways to make LEDs. Other case studies include Bentley Motors, the luxury car maker, FormFormForm, and Aesseal.
Peter Marsh, said: "We are still very good at making things and manufacturing has immense potential to contribute substantially to our economy, however, not enough people are aware of our success stories and one way to improve the growth prospects of UK industry is to find new ways to tell the world about it."
Keith Strickland, Plessey's CTO, said: "Plessey's LEDs are produced in the UK at the company's Plymouth wafer fabrication facility, using its proprietary GaN-on-Silicon technology. By utilising standard silicon semiconductor production techniques and process automation, Plessey is able to produce high-volume, high-quality, industry standard LEDs that are demanded by the solid state lighting market.
"Combining the inherent features of GaN-on-Silicon, such as low thermal resistance and a focused light emitting surface, with advanced packaging technology will permit monolithic integration of LEDs with other components and provide differentiated solutions for lighting applications. Plessey is working with a number of 'blue chip' lighting companies to develop Application Specific LEDs (ASLEDs) for the next generation of lighting solutions", he added.
46 organisations have already backed the website, which is setting out to educate young people on the career opportunities in manufacturing, influence academics and politicians and change perceptions of Britain's industrial strengths.
"The project has really captured the imagination and we've already received significant support from leading organisations, such as JCB, Nesta, Rolls-Royce, Santander Bank, Siemens, the Royal Society and University of Cambridge", said Marsh.
