Philips plans Lumileds LED plant in Singapore

Philips Electronics is to invest an estimated $80 million to establish a high-power LED wafer production facility in Singapore for its subsidiary Lumileds Lighting. According to LEDs Magazine.

Initial production at the new facility is expected to start in the first quarter of 2007. By the end of the year, Philips expects to double its total power LED production capacity.

Lumileds currently manufactures LED wafers and chips at its facility in San Jose, California, and operates a packaging facility in Penang, Malaysia. Steve Landau, Worldwide Marcom Manager for Philips Lumileds, told LEDs Magazine that the new facility will be a wafer fab. "Operations in both Penang and San Jose will remain unchanged," he said.

The new plant will be a high-volume production facility for Lumileds' Luxeon range of LEDs, and will employ about 900 people at full capacity.

This is the latest indication by Philips that it is taking the solid-state lighting market seriously. Last year, the company gained full control of Lumileds by purchasing Agilent Technologies' share of Lumileds Lighting for $950 million.

In the fiscal year ending July 2005, Lumileds sales jumped 28% to $324 million, and operating profit reached $83 million. Lumileds forecast it would have operating margins of 25% in the coming years.

Philips' global lighting rivals have also been busy. Osram has a well-established vertically integrated business that manufactures LEDs and LED lighting products, while just last week GE bought Emcore's 50% share of GELcore and announced a partnership with LED maker Nichia.