WIRELESS telecoms specialist Filtronic plans to put its County Durham operation at the heart of its production.
The Newton Aycliffe facility, which employs about 250 people, produces semiconductors, which will be at the heart of many of the group's new products.
The group is reorganising its operations into four business units, Integrated Products, Wireless Infrastructure, Handset Products and Central Services.
Integrated Products, which will be at the Newton Aycliffe facility, incorporates activities previously included in the Broadband Access, Electronic Warfare and Compound Semiconductor business segments of Filtronic, based in the UK and US.
It will be responsible for the development, manufacture and supply of compound semiconductor devices, which form the basis of higher value Filtronic products, such as base station power amplifiers.
The Wireless Infrastructure business will continue to supply radio frequency products for wireless devices, while Handset Products will supply antennas for mobile handsets.
The fourth business unit, Central Services, will incorporate the digital signal processing expertise of Filtronic Sigtek, together with a small research and development team based in Saltaire, near Bradford, West Yorkshire, and other group administrative services.
Finance director John Samuel said: "This reorganisation puts the Newton Aycliffe facility at the heart of our business.
"It will be the centre of our Integrated Products division, which also includes a site in Yorkshire and two in the US."
Professor David Rhodes, executive chairman of Filtronic, said: "Following our success in being selected by an original equipment manufacturer to supply initial quantities of integrated radio frequency head units containing power amplifiers, the board of Filtronic plc has decided to reorganise the company's business segments into four units.
"This is to ensure that the company is best positioned to address the challenges of moving from the development stage into production with a broad range of new products.
"Many of these will incorporate compound semiconductor devices from our fabrication facility at Newton Aycliffe."
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