Wafer maker predicts performance ahead of expectations

At the company’s annual meeting on its 20th anniversary, chairman Dr Godfrey Ainsworth (pictured) said: “The rapidly growing demand for our products is being fuelled in part by a number of significant factors in the wireless communications marketplace. Firstly, the advanced features, higher performance and low power consumptions that are enabled by the use of gallium arsenide mean that the volume of our products being used in handsets and other wireless devices is growing substantially faster than the overall handset market. Secondly, the growth in wireless communications in emerging markets is driving additional demand for feature rich handsets with advanced features and efficiencies made possible by our products. Thirdly, competing technologies and protocols are being consolidated within hardware by building multiple components in handsets to enable greater compatibility between new and emerging wireless standards. Ainsworth said that at the time IQE came into being in 1988, many of today's high-tech products behind which the company provided the enabling materials, were either emerging technologies or had not yet been imagined. The world-wide-web was in its infancy, communications were dominated by voice traffic rather than data, CDs were taking over from vinyl, although DVD technology was still several years away, mobile phones were only just becoming available, video on demand through cable or satellite was evolving and satellite navigation was limited to the realms of science fiction. IQE had played an important role in providing the enabling technology behind many of the technologies that are today taken for granted, Ainsworth added. However, since the technology crash in 2001, IQE had deliberately and successfully diversified its product range and had limited its exposure to single technology nodes by focussing on a wide range of high growth potential markets, he went on. IQE's primary product range now focused on RF components that are used in mobile communications devices and wireless applications, but its core technology also enabled a range of other products including lasers for CD/DVD players and recorders, printers, copiers and emerging laser projection devices. And demand for fibre-optic products that were part of IQE’s original core competency was now also returning. Looking ahead, Ainsworth concluded: “Although no one knows what the digital age will bring over the next 20 years, the Board is confident that the continuing buoyant market conditions and our robust strategy will ensure that we remain on course to deliver strong growth in revenues and profits in the current financial year.” IQE operates six manufacturing facilities located in Cardiff (two) and Milton Keynes in the UK; in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and Somerset, New Jersey in the USA; and Singapore.