Tuesday, May 4, 2010

LED Chip Maker Creates 1,000 Jobs


THE new Osram light-emitting diodes (LEDs) wafer fabrication facility at the Bayan Lepas Industrial Park will create about 1,000 jobs.

This means that the company will have some 4,000 workers by end of the year.

“Some 15% to 20% of the workforce to be recruited will comprise engineers,” said Osram Opto Semiconductors GmbH president and chief executive officer Datuk Dr Ruediger Mueller after the launching of the wafer fabrication facility by International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed on Tuesday.

“Each year, the new production facility can turn out enough chips to cover an area of 500 sq metres.

“That’s equivalent to the surface area of a wing on a Boeing 747 or two tennis courts.

“And we are not talking about giant chips. We’re talking about structural elements hardly visible to the naked eye. At least eight of our smallest chips fit on the head of a pin!” he added.

Osram manufactures the LED chips with indium-gallium-nitride technology on 4-inch wafers, which serve as the basis for blue and white LEDs.

“Their main fields of application are solid state lighting, LCD backlights, flash for cameras and mobile phones, automotive forward lighting and others which are only emerging today,” he said.

Mueller said the new LED chip production facility would further strengthen Osram’s LED market position.

He said: “Penang’s strategic location enables us to get our products quickly to the market.

“We are the only manufacturer to make LED chips in Asia and Europe.

“This unique advantage gives us a perfect position in terms of quantity, quality, cost and flexibility.”

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