“The addition of a direct facility adds a range of value-added manufacturing services, design-in support, volume availability and security of supply on a wide range of opto parts including discrete LEDs, LED displays, lighting components and luminaires,” said the firm. “Additionally, later this year, the company will install a full LED production line in the UK facility.”

The UK line will have an hourly capacity for 20,000 wire-bonds and 13,000-17,000 die-mounts.

“The idea is not to transfer mass production to the UK,” Ledtech UK commercial director William Heath told Electronics Weekly, “it is to accommodate runs of thousands or tens of thousands.”

The machines will be state-of-the-art, he said: “Part of the reason we are bringing new machines in is that they can do more. Older machines can’t do chip-on-board, and there are so many advantages to chip-on-board.”

Ledtech UK is a joint enterprise between UK LED firm OMC and Ledtech’s Taiwanese parent, sat up by Ledtech’s founder and CEO Frank Liu. .

“The opening of our UK facility in Redruth means that we now have design centres in Europe, Asia, and the USA, available to develop custom solutions for applications that require a specialised approach,” said Liu.

Ledtech is vertically-integrated. Except for making LED die, which is buys in in scored-wafer form, it makes products at all levels from packaged LEDs to finished luminaires, including CoB LEDs, LED strips, car dash displays, fluorescent tube replacements, streetlamps and commercial incandescent reflector bulb replacements, but not consumer items such as replacement light bulbs.

“And if you need something custom-made, we are fully equipped to design a bespoke solution to suit your application” said UK director Heath.

Key markets include commercial, consumer, industrial, office, retail, business, finance, transportation, signage, instrumentation, healthcare, vending, gaming, hotels, restaurants, leisure and public spaces.

The firm’s Guangzhou factory floors cover 275,000 square feet and capacity exceeds a million LED die bonds per hour and 500,000 feet of LED strip per month.