Newport was once the...

The Welsh Development Agency

Teri-Ann Winslow, Managing

Optoelectronics is another area...

Morgan was enthusiastic about the company's expansion. "This ticks all the right boxes for us, it offers skilled, secure job opportunities, and as the power management sector, in which IR are the leading company, is not as turbulent as the majority of the semiconductor industry, we have a great deal of confidence that this will be a long term commitment". He continued "For many years we haven't been able to make the most of our home grown talent. Engineering graduates have been forced to take posts in England, or elsewhere in Europe. It is important for us to support the investment of companies like IR into Wales, and hopefully this will act as a test case for other leading electronics firms to see what we have to offer". The IR CEO certainly seems convinced of Wales' electronics pedigree «IR first opened up operations in Wales just over four years ago, and has benefited from this move immensely". The expanded plant in Newport is complimented by the company's design centre for automotive electronics in Swansea. "We have worked closely with both Swansea and Cardiff Universities, and have found that the graduates they can supply fit our specific requirements very closely" he concluded.

Newport was once the site of the Roman town of Isca, which was on the North West border of their empire. The Romans couldn't see any value in going further than a few kilometres into Wales, so the frontier was set up there, and this tiny Celtic nation has had to put up with this sort of treatment ever since. During the 80s many Japanese firms were persuaded to open plants in South Wales, which following the collapse of the coal and steel industries had become one of Europe's unemployment black spots. Such projects proved successful (perhaps because both cultures find it acceptable to eat seaweed), but these only really furnished the region with low level manufacturing jobs, that sooner or later were going to be transferred to even more cost effective areas. The fall of the tiger economies towards the end of the 90s, and the global electronics down turn of the last few years have resulted in industry heavyweights like LG, Bosch, Panasonic and Sony downsizing their Welsh operations.

The Welsh Development Agency (WDA) has set up a series of facilities to help new companies to get on their feet. These Technium Centres are based at 13 academic establishments across the country, and are expected to create 1000 new jobs within the next two years. Dr Chris Young, of the Welsh Electronics Forum is adamant that things are getting better "We've recognised the need to move on. The trend for lower skilled electronics production jobs to shift to Eastern Europe, or the Far East, is being seen everywhere, it's not just happening here in Wales. But we have looked into ways to multiply the number of to higher level opportunities, and have managed very well to backfill with more skilled jobs." She elaborated "With the Welsh Assembly, WDA, and ELWA (the Welsh Higher Education Funding Council) working together, we can create a more attractive environment for companies looking to set up here. Each brings something different to this, and the mixture of business friendly policy decisions, strong business support, and enhancement of workforce skills, should help to make Wales a more tech lead economy". Some of the first companies to gain from the forum's support are IQE which is a foundry for epitaxial wafers, looking to take advantage of the growing number of firms looking to outsource, Avantis which has employed it patented OpenServer technology to make more efficient content delivery in Network Attached Storage (NAS) systems, and Atlantic Technology which has gained a strong reputation in the design and of manufacture of innovative packaging technologies.

Teri-Ann Winslow, Managing Director of Winslow Adaptics, also has a positive attitude about Wales' future on this front. "The Welsh electronics industry is quite entrepreneurial by nature, and the WDA and Welsh Electronics Forum are now starting to look at the needs of smaller companies, as well as the multinationals". Her company manufactures sockets and adaptors to allow new state of the art components to be utilised in legacy systems. This means that aerospace, medical, and industrial sectors can avoid the increasing problem of shortening component life cycles, and upgrade to higher performance devices without added expense. It has been rewarded with contracts from Smiths Aerospace, Marconi, Thales, and Westinghouse as a result.

Optoelectronics is another area where Wales looks to have gained some strength. Success stories include Ellison Sensor, which produces pressure transducers using silicon-on-sapphire, allowing them to be used in adverse conditions and high temperatures while still maintaining high levels of accuracy. Others are Leader Optec which creates high quality fibre optic cable assemblies for use in ultra fast communication networks, and Enfis, whose High Brightness LED technology is being utilised by medical OEMs to treat skin conditions.

But if Wales is going to get itself further up the food chain it will need the WDA and Welsh Assembly to put their money where their mouth is, and pledge serious long term investment. Encouraging local people to set up their own companies, getting academics to form university spin offs, and making the region more attractive to international players like IR. The industry here in Europe is obviously going to get increasingly sparse, and the competition from elsewhere in the continent will only get stronger."Cross the mountain yonder, you will see a lake, and upon it is lies a fortress of marvels" From the Mabinogion