Plessey is expanding its facility here to include a new LED assembly line. This addition will allow the company to focus on its high-brightness LEDs for solid-state lighting and sensing. The expansion will cut production time and enable development of next-generation LED packages, the company said. The new assembly line use a laser saw process, and finishes with an automatic test for industry standard PLCC (plastic leadless chip carrier) packages. The line now features die attachment, wire bonding, phosphor mixing, encapsulation and singulation. It is designed specifically around speed and flexibility, providing customers with engineering samples for evaluation and pilot builds ahead of full production. The Plymouth facility also offers wafer sawing. The company plans to establish new LED packaging standards to match the benefits made at the wafer level. “The industrialization of GaN-on-silicon LED technology does not end at producing wafers,” said Plessey Operations Director Mike Snaith. “It also requires as much attention to the back-end processing to ensure that all the benefits we make at wafer level are fully realized in the final product.” The Plymouth facility has already completed prototypes for the new market of LED filament replacement bulbs. The filament prototypes use a dedicated die and assembly, all of which are designed and manufactured on site. For more information, visit www.plesseysemiconductors.com.