10 February 2021
Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology relocates to advanced manufacturing facility.
Move driven by exceptional business growth.
Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology, a leading provider of advanced wafer processing solutions for the semiconductor industry, has today announced plans to move to a state-of-the-art, manufacturing facility in Bristol, UK. The relocation is driven by the growing demand from customers, which include the world’s leading semiconductor device manufacturers and materials research institutions.
Managing Director of Plasma Technology, Matt Kelly, comments: “The continued and accelerating demand for our production and research solutions has meant it’s time to create a new facility. Our new site will be a leading-edge laboratory, manufacturing and office environment for our colleagues, customers, and collaboration partners; an inspiring environment that supports team working, innovation, training and provides greater flexibility. Our customers will have even more opportunity to see our solutions and train at our facility. Our building will also be an excellent base to welcome community groups, such as schools and universities promoting STEM subjects.
Matt continues: “The new premises is just twenty minutes away from our current site and is a purpose-built facility in Bristol. We took the decision to keep our manufacturing and R&D facilities in the Bristol area, for several reasons. Our employees are of utmost importance to us and limited disruption to their current work/home life balance was key. We are also passionate about our involvement in and support of the local economy and want to maintain our contribution here. As we grow further, we will continue to provide additional employment opportunities in the Bristol/West-Country tech cluster”.
The new facility will include ISO 5 & 6 class application laboratories spanning 1,000m2 equipped with a complete suite of state-of-the-art wafer processing solutions and advanced characterisation/metrology technologies; many of these being supplied by Oxford Instruments businesses. This will not only enable development of next generation processes for all our customers but also allow continuous improvement, and intense reliability testing of our high-volume manufacturing (HVM) application processes, combining silicon semiconductor standards with compound semiconductor solutions.
The design of the new site incorporates a range of energy saving technologies to reduce environmental impact, with the goal to eliminate the use of fossil fuels. This includes the option to generate significant amounts of energy from photovoltaic panels, reusing heat from the building’s cooling and heating systems, and harvesting rainwater.
Oxford Instruments plc Group is delighted to share this exciting news and looks forward to welcoming customers and partners to the new facility in the summer of 2022.