The UK arm of a global optical-components and laser maker, running an indium phosphide chip operation at Caswell Science Park near Towcester, with Torbay links in Devon.
Lumentum designs and makes optical and photonic products. Its parts carry data through telecom, business and data-centre networks, and its lasers are used in advanced manufacturing and 3D sensing. In the UK, the team at Caswell, near Towcester in Northamptonshire, works on the chips themselves. Its chip research and development group develops and manages the wafer-fabrication processes for indium phosphide, a compound semiconductor used to make lasers, modulators, receivers and photonic integrated circuits (tiny chips that guide light) for cloud and networking uses. Companies House lists Lumentum Technology UK Limited as active, with its business described as making optical precision instruments.
The roots of the UK business go back a long way. Bookham Technology was founded in the UK in 1988, merged with Avanex in 2009 to become Oclaro, and Lumentum took over Oclaro in December 2018. The Caswell site itself dates from 1940, when Plessey set up a research laboratory on a farm there. The Allen Clark Research Centre was opened by the Duke of Edinburgh on 20 March 1964, and the site is credited with the gallium arsenide FET and the MMIC, two inventions behind modern radio and microwave electronics. Marconi's site was sold to Bookham in 2002. We did not find a Lumentum mission statement; the job advert we read talks of bringing passion and customer focus to the business.
Caswell Science Park covers about 22 acres near Towcester and opened in its present form in 2009, with Lumentum as its main occupier. A 2010 profile described a three-inch indium phosphide wafer fab there with 57,000 square feet of cleanroom, so the site is a real chip factory, not an office. Lumentum is also listed among the members of the Torbay Hi-Tech Cluster in Devon, where the local photonics industry grew from the Paignton electronics site that opened in 1954. We could not confirm from the pages we read exactly which Torbay buildings Lumentum uses today.
Job adverts describe a fast-moving environment, with "enthusiastic over-achievers" and "wild growth", which is the company's own language. The Caswell site is rural and not served by public transport, which is useful to know before you plan a commute. Shift patterns such as four days on and four days off appear in listings for process integration engineers. A third-party profile gives Lumentum about 3,200 employees worldwide, though that figure is dated and not UK-only.
The Caswell jobs shown in adverts include process integration engineers, staff process development engineers (lithography) and process engineering interns, which are the people who turn a design into thousands of working chips. A semiconductor site also needs equipment technicians, quality and test staff, supply chain and finance teams. If you like physics, chemistry, materials or electronics, this is a place where those subjects become a manufacturing career. Lumentum's own site is the place to read about current openings.
Website: www.lumentum.com
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