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STABLE SCIENTISTS From farming to photonics - the remarkable story of the Marconi Materials Technical Centre at Caswell Nestling deep in the Northamptonshire countryside, a couple of miles north-west of the small market town and racecourse of Towcester, the location of Caswell is too small to appear on most maps. All the more remarkable therefore is its significance as Britain's leading photonics and semiconductor research and development centre. Today the site is a workforce for 300-odd scientists and support staff, with sophisticated on-site production facilities in a landscaped country estate setting. Yet some 60 years ago it was home to a handful of research chemists based in a stable block, hastily uprooted from bomb-ravaged Essex. Centre of excellence Caswell today is the home of Marconi Materials Technology, an R&D facility of Marconi dedicated to microelectronics. State-of-the art work is carried out here in the design and production of microwave monolithic integrated circuits (MMICs) and photonic devices based on gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductor technology. From photonic systems for the next millennium it's a far cry to developing better capacitors for aircraft radio but that was Caswell's equally vital role nearly sixty years ago. In 1940 the Plessey Company (one of the companies incorporated into Marconi) was engaged on vital war work making aircraft radio systems. The main plant at Ilford, just east of London, was highly vulnerable to enemy bombing and the decision was taken to shift the research laboratory to safer territory. Stable scientists Caswell House, not far from Northampton and today's new city of Milton Keynes, was the chosen site. By no means an ideal location, it comprised a small country house with a working farm; the half dozen scientists set up their equipment in a hastily converted stable block. Other war work carried out included fuses for bombs and soon afterwards, the development of radar-absorbing materials and contract research for what is now the government's Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. By 1950 staff numbers had grown to 50 and small production factories had been opened at a couple of sites nearby. R&D in the field of electronic components and materials technology expanded to the stage where Caswell became the research centre for a number of Plessey plants. From the inception of optoelectronics R&D in the mid-1970's Caswell was at the forefront of this field, a position it retains to the present day for the benefit of Marconi and GEC group companies. Spotlight on Caswell On a site that would do justice to a small university, some 330 people are employed - about a third in R&D, another third in manufacturing and the remainder performing support functions. In their number are to be found circuit designers, quantum physicists, analytical chemists, electrical engineers, process designers, semiconductor physicists, photonic scientists and microwave scientists. The range of services offered there by Marconi Materials Technology extends from consultancy on technology trends and specific design problems, though to the design, fabrication and supply of leading-edge components and subsystems to meet the most demanding requirements, all ISO 9001 qualified. Facilities on-site include a III-V wafer fabrication plant for producing gallium arsenide and indium phosphide-based semiconductors and full support services, such as ion implanting, electron beam lithography and electron microscopy. Caswell provides visiting professors at a number of UK universities and collaborates actively with a number of other universities in Britain and Europe. The centre also sponsors close links with technical activities at the Sponne School in Towcester. KEY DATES
1958. Production of integrated circuits begins, based on Caswell's R&D. 1964. The Duke of Edinburgh opens the Allen Clark Research Centre.
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