The stalwart of the UK chip industry, Plessey Semiconductors, has been resurrected as a startup by a team of engineers from Swindon and Plymouth on the back of the existing fab plant, acquired from German company X-Fab.
The semiconductor manufacturing facility in Roborough currently produces eight-inch wafers for external customers in a foundry business model on 0.35-micron CMOS process technologies.
The semiconductor manufacturing facility in Roborough currently produces eight-inch wafers for external customers in a foundry business model on 0.35-micron CMOS process technologies.
Plessey Semiconductors (through Plus Semiconductors in Swindon) is transferring its world-class bipolar process technologies on both silicon and silicon-on-insulator substrates into Roborough later this year, and both the CMOS and the bipolar process technologies will be used to support a set of existing foundry customers.
However, Plessey aims to follow in its namesake's footsteps by developing and supporting a range of high performance analogue and mixed-signal semiconductor products.
"The historical significance of what we are doing is not lost on the management and employees of our new business," said Michael LeGoff, Managing Director of Plessey Semiconductors.
"A large proportion of our employees started their careers in Plessey working in the various sites around the UK. We see this announcement as a return to our roots. This is a business model that addresses a market that we know very well - designing and manufacturing a set of high technology semiconductor products that competes with any semiconductor company in the world."
Nick Flaherty has been covering technology and startups since 1990 and is based in Bristol, where he co-founded the SiliconSouthWest network. During that time he has worked for most of the electronics magazines and newspapers in the UK and several in Europe and the US, covering all areas of the industry. He blogs at The Embedded blog www.embeddedblog.blogspot.com and Portable Multimedia www.portablemultimedia.blogspot.com and at www.flaherty.co.uk.
However, Plessey aims to follow in its namesake's footsteps by developing and supporting a range of high performance analogue and mixed-signal semiconductor products.
"The historical significance of what we are doing is not lost on the management and employees of our new business," said Michael LeGoff, Managing Director of Plessey Semiconductors.
"A large proportion of our employees started their careers in Plessey working in the various sites around the UK. We see this announcement as a return to our roots. This is a business model that addresses a market that we know very well - designing and manufacturing a set of high technology semiconductor products that competes with any semiconductor company in the world."
Nick Flaherty has been covering technology and startups since 1990 and is based in Bristol, where he co-founded the SiliconSouthWest network. During that time he has worked for most of the electronics magazines and newspapers in the UK and several in Europe and the US, covering all areas of the industry. He blogs at The Embedded blog www.embeddedblog.blogspot.com and Portable Multimedia www.portablemultimedia.blogspot.com and at www.flaherty.co.uk.