4 | Aycliffe Today Business
BUSINESS BRIEFS
TEKMAR ’ S CHINA DEAL
Newton Aycliffe-based Tekmar Energy has been awarded a large contract to protect array cables on the Binhai North H2 Offshore Windfarm project , in the Jiangsu province of China .
It comes after the successful supply and installation of its systems on the first project in Taiwan last year , the Formosa 1 demonstrator project .
The 400MW Binhai North H2 project is currently under contraction and aims to be completed and fully commissioned by the end of 2017 . The cables and cable protection systems will be installed this summer .
Tekmar has also recently completed the successful delivery of j-tube seals and bend restrictors for the Oseberg Vestflanken 2 project in the North Sea .
Oseberg Vestflanken 2 is located approximately 8km North-West of Oseberg field centre and includes Alpha , Gamma and Kappa oil and gas structures .
FIRM ENGINEERS AYCLIFFE MOVE
Engineering consultancy M5tec has moved to a larger office space on Aycliffe Business Park to facilitate its ongoing growth .
Originally based at the Old Brewery Business Centre in Castle Eden , m5tec started out with a team of three , but after more than tripling in size in three years has moved to a larger office space at Parson ’ s Court on the park
Founded by a group of experienced engineers in 2014 , M5tec is a provider of engineering technical services to high assurance industries worldwide such as marine mining , subsea & offshore , nuclear and oil & gas , as well as general engineering .
LEGAL EAGLES
Durham County Council has been shortlisted for a prestigious national award in recognition of its use of technology .
The authority ’ s legal services department has been named as a finalist in the Excellence in Technology category of the 2017 Law Society Excellence Awards .
Durham is the only council or public sector body to make the shortlist of ten , from a record number of entries .
The Excellence in Technology category “ celebrates the innovative marriage of technology and law in the provision of services for clients .”
Former Compound Photonics facility sold again in $ 80m deal
The former Fujitsu and Compound Photonics facility on Aycliffe Business Park has been sold again in an $ 80m deal – just three months after changing hands .
Around 100 jobs were secured when Kaiam Corporation , a US maker of datacentre transceivers , has acquired the manufacturing facilities of the Compound site in May . But it ’ s emerged the site has now been sold on to Pennsylvania-based II- VI Incorporated , a leader in engineered materials and optoelectronic components .
The firm announced its acquisition of Kaiam ’ s 6-inch wafer fabrication facility in Aycliffe this summer .
The 300,000 sq ft facility hosts a state-ofthe-art 100,000 sq ft clean room designed for high-volume manufacturing of compound semiconductor devices based on GaAs , SiC and InP materials .
Dr . Chuck Mattera , president and CEO of II-VI said : “ This facility hosts one of the best clean rooms in the entire compound semiconductor industry and augments our capabilities at a time when industry capacity is rapidly becoming fully subscribed .
“ Given the demand we anticipate , this acquisition will allow us faster time to market than building a proprietary green field site and will enhance our leadership position in the supply chain .
“ This acquisition will significantly expand our capacity and is expected to enable us over time to penetrate high growth markets driven by , for example , 3D sensing , 5G wireless , the electrification of the car , and data center communications .”
Dr . Bardia Peseshki , the CEO of Kaiam , added : “ II-VI will be using this fab more effectively by leveraging its full capacity and multi-purpose use .
“ I am looking forward to working with
II-VI to establish a commercial relationship that includes having II-VI provide InP-based epitaxial wafers and wafer fabrication services for our products as we continue to expand our transceiver business in the rapidly growing 100G and impending 400G datacenter markets .”
As a part of its vertical integration strategy , II-VI is expanding its VCSEL product family and leveraging its broad engineered materials and optoelectronic device technology platforms and manufacturing capabilities around the globe to drive scale and innovation through the development of high performance compound semiconductor devices .
II-VI Incorporated , a global leader in engineered materials and opto-electronic components , is a vertically integrated manufacturing company that develops innovative products for diversified applications in the industrial , optical communications , military , life sciences , semiconductor equipment , and consumer markets .
Headquartered in Saxonburg , Pennsylvania , with research and development , manufacturing , sales , service , and distribution facilities worldwide , the company produces a wide variety of applicationspecific photonic and electronic materials and components , and deploys them in various forms including integrated with advanced software to enable our customers .
Kaiam revealed it planned to acquire the Aycliffe site in March this year and completed the deal in May .
Arizona-based Compound Photonics had saved the former RFMD plant from closure after buying it in July 2013 .