TRUMPF completes acquisition of Philips Photonics

Ditzingen, April 1, 2019 – Effective as of April 1, 2019, high-tech company TRUMPF will complete the acquisition of the photonics business from Philips, which it had announced in December 2018. The acquisition will establish a new business division called TRUMPF Photonic Components, which will be headed up by Lutz Aschke and Joseph Pankert. Lutz Aschke has been CFO of Laser Technology at the TRUMPF Group since 2016, while Joseph Pankert has been General Manager of Philips Photonics since 2009.

Through the acquisition, TRUMPF will gain access to a new market segment that will complement its existing high-power diode laser business. Philips Photonics’ laser diodes are used in smartphones, in digital data transfer applications and in sensors for autonomous driving.

Founded in 2000, Photonics GmbH has around 280 employees and is headquartered in Ulm, where it manufactures laser diodes in a dedicated production plant. Now, it is set to continue growing as part of TRUMPF, an innovative high-tech company with strong product development expertise.

In the fiscal year 2017/18, TRUMPF invested almost 340 million euros in research and development and posted a ratio of R&D expenditure to sales of 9.5 percent.

With the VCSEL (vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser) laser diode, the light is emitted perpendicular to the plane of the semiconductor chip, in contrast to the edge-emitting laser diode, where the light exits at one or two edges of the chip. VCSEL diodes are inexpensive to manufacture.

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