MOBILE phone microchip maker Filtronic is on course to increase production six fold on one of its lines.

The company, which took over the former Fujitsu factory in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, five years ago, continues to employ record numbers of staff.

The factory produces specialist chips that provide the roaming service between networks on mobile telephones.

Earlier this year, it won its largest contract so far, with RF Micro Devices, one of the world's largest suppliers of modules for mobile phone handsets.

RFMD is now its largest customer and the Newton Aycliffe site has had to increase production to meet demand.

About £15m has been spent increasing capacity at the Newton Aycliffe plant.

During the past year, Filtronic has increased staff numbers from 250 to 450 and its market share to 20 per cent, with optimism high that it can continue to grow by seven per cent a year.

The company held its annual meeting in Shipley, West Yorkshire, yesterday.

Chairman Professor David Rhodes told shareholders: "In our preliminary announcement, I indicated the importance to Filtronic of achieving an aggressive ramp-up in semi-conductor output from the Newton Aycliffe foundry to serve demand for handset switches from our major customer, RF Micro Devices. I am pleased to report that we are in line with our plan, with a greater than six fold increase in weekly wafer output over the past six months."