Laser Giant Hamamatsu Photonics New Plant Completion, Annual Production Capacity Of 25 Million Units!

Recently, Japan's Hamamatsu Photonics (Hamamatsu Photonics) in Hamamatsu City, Hamana District of Miyakoda Manufacturing Co., Ltd. to complete the construction of a new building, the completion ceremony was held on July 29, the plant will be put into operation in November 2024, the overall production capacity will be increased by 2.5 times.
It is understood that Hamamatsu Photonics specializes in the development, manufacture, and sale of semiconductor lasers, laser oscillators, and application products using various lasers applied in the fields of measurement, analysis, processing, FA, and medical care, etc., and after the completion of this new plant, the post-processing processes such as assembly of its semiconductor lasers will be consolidated into the new plant, with an estimated annual production capacity of approximately 25 million units (equivalent to a single chip).
Construction of the plant began in May 2023, and it will be completed in July 2024 and start production in November. The total investment amounts to about 4.1 billion yen (equivalent to RMB 194.4 million), with a total floor space of 6,720 square meters, and is expected to accommodate about 160 employees.
For the construction of the new factory, Hamamatsu Photonics said it will optimize the workflow between manufacturing processes, while introducing state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment and testing equipment to promote process automation and efficiency and improve productivity.
Semiconductor lasers are known to be the core component of high-performance sensor LiDAR (laser radar). In recent years, the application of LiDAR technology in the automotive field is rapidly expanding, especially the popularity of autonomous driving and ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System), which greatly boosts the growth of the LiDAR market.
According to YOLE data, the global automotive LiDAR market size has reached USD 5.38 billion in 2023, and this figure is expected to grow to USD 3.632 billion in 2029, with a CAGR of 38% during the period, which indicates that the LiDAR market will maintain a strong growth trend in the coming years.
With the rapid growth of the LiDAR market, semiconductor lasers will also usher in a surge in demand, Hamamatsu Photonics construction of a new plant is to respond to this market demand, in order to expand sales of semiconductor lasers.
However, there is a view in the industry that Hamamatsu Photonics has delayed the increase in production despite the completion of the new plant in July, which may mean that the increase in demand for LIDAR for autonomous driving has been delayed, and that the introduction of the equipment will be slower than initially expected.
In addition to the completion of this new plant, Hamamatsu Photonics recently completed the acquisition of NKT Photonics, a Danish manufacturer of high-performance fiber lasers and photonic crystal fibers.
This acquisition stems from the June 2022 Hamamatsu Photonics plans to 255 million euros for the price of the strategic acquisition of NKT Photonics, and in May 2023, the Danish government for national security reasons, so that the acquisition of the temporary "shelved". In response, Hamamatsu Photonics did not give up, but took further action and finally took NKT Photonics under its wing in early June this year. After two years, NKT Photonics has now been acquired by Photonics Management Europe S.R.L, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hamamatsu Photonics K.K. However, it is puzzling that NKT Photonics is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Hamamatsu Photonics S.R.L.
Confusingly, however, before the acquisition was completed, NKT Photonics was sued in local federal court on April 17, 2024, by Omni Continuum LLC, a company owned by Professor Mohammed N. Islam of the University of Michigan, alleging that NKT Photonics' "multistage supercontinuum dielectrics" are not suitable for use in the manufacture of photonics. multistage supercontinuum" laser infringes on two patents related to its technology for industrial, medical, defense and quantum applications, claiming at least $18 million, but no update on this patent infringement case has been announced.