7 March 2011

Russian President visits Optogan’s St Petersburg plant

Optogan has hosted a visit by Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev to its LED lamp production plant in St Petersburg, Russia, which was opened last November by Sergey Ivanov, deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

Picture: President Medvedev (second from left) with Optogan’s founders Maxim Odnoblyudov, Vladislav Bougrov and Alexey Kovsh.

Optogan’s chip technology was created by Vladislav Bougrov and Maxim Odnoblyudov, who were PhD students of Nobel prize winner and Russian Academy of Science member Zhores Alferov at the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in St Petersburg in the 1990s before working at Finland’s Helsinki University of Technology, then in late 2004 (together with Alexey Kovsh) founding Optogan Oy in Espoo, Helsinki to develop GaN-based LEDs.

In addition to Optogan having an R&D facility in Helsinki, since founding Optogan GmbH in Germany in 2005 it has established epitaxy and chip R&D plus a pilot line in Dortmund and, last year, its Fab1 chip fabrication plant in Landshut. After founding CJSC Optogan in Russia in 2009, last May it acquired the industrial facility and infrastructure of Elcoteq in St Petersburg, where it has established LED component and luminaire production lines.

The new Fab2 St Petersburg plant makes LED components, lamps and light fixtures, making Optogan a vertically integrated manufacturer of GaN-based HB-LED chips, components, lamps and luminaires. The plant aims to fulfil the rapidly growing domestic demand.

“Our LED production in St Petersburg started in 2010 and is the largest [LED component and module manufacturing plant] in East Europe and CIS,” says Optogan Group’s CEO Odnoblyudov. With an overall investment of 3.35bn rubles (€80m), the plant covers 15,000m2 of floor space (including 5000m2 of cleanroom). The first production line has an annual production capacity of 360 million LEDs (30 million per month), and further capacity extensions are scheduled for the end of 2011. Total company staffing is more than 250, but is expected to rise to as many as 800.

“A continual improvement of the technology and the placement of a complete production process in Russia will lead to a noticeable price reduction which, in turn, will lead to even stronger sales within the domestic market,” reckons Odnoblyudov. To achieve this goal, Optogan plans to enter into collaborations with both national and international lighting manufacturers.

See related items:

Optogan opens largest LED plant in Eastern Europe

Optogan first in Europe to order Aixtron CRIUS II for GaN LED production

Russian GaN-based LED lighting JV established after OptoGaN acquisition

Tags: Optogan GaN LEDs

Visit: www.optogan.com

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