UK chip plant could close following Apple order loss
US semiconductor manufacturer Coherent could close or sell its facility in the north of the UK after Apple withdrew as a customer.
Reports in the Daily Telegraph say Coherent's UK subsidiary, which runs a 29,000-square-metre wafer fab in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, had previously supplied parts for Apple's iPhone Face ID recognition system. This business caused the plant's revenue to surge from USD 17 million in 2022 to USD 134 million in the 2023 fiscal year.
However, after Apple made design changes to its new generation of devices, it pulled the plug on the arrangement. Naturally, that derailed Coherent's financial planning, and now the news stories suggest the company has already made hundreds of redundancies, is conducting a strategic review, exploring new technologies, and considering selling the plant.
The Newton Aycliffe wafer fab opened as a silicon DRAM wafer fab in 1991. It was first owned by Fujitsu, but then bought by Filtronic in 1999 to manufacture compound semiconductor RF circuits. Later it was acquired by II-VI, which became Coherent Corp.
