Photo above: David Mitchell (left) and Yuval Maimon

The Global Electronic Manufacturing Services provider (EMS), Fabrinet, is entering Israel and is now in the final stages of building a new manufacturing facility in Yokneam, near Haifa. Fabrinet has invested approximately $6.5 million in preparing a complete production capabilities, ranging from SMT and Microelectronics, to Optics and Mechanical works.

Yuval Maimon, General Manager at Fabrinet Israel, told Techtime that Fabrint’s facility in Israel is the first in the country to provide Electronics, Microelectronics and Optics production services “under one roof”.  Yuval: “Until now customers needed to move their products between several different specialty production services. We bring new offer: total responsibility to all the aspects of production.”

The facility is planned to start working this month (January 2020). It includes also clean rooms for Optics and Microelectronics works and equipment for Active/Passive Alignment, Wire Bonding and Die Attach for up to minus 1 micron accuracy. For now, the production facility employs 15-20 employees.

Fabrinet expects that its facility in Israel will provide local NPI services (New Product Introduction), helping the customers with design for manufacturability, and then transferring those programs to Thailand for volume manufacturing.

Low-volume, High-mix Service Provider

Fabrinet was founded in 2000 by the current chairman, David T. (Tom) Mitchell, one of the co-founders of Seagate Technology, as a low-volume, high-mix service provider for the manufacturing of complex optical components. Today it provides advanced optical packaging and precision optical, electro-mechanical and electronic manufacturing services to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of complex products.

It is focused mainly on optical communication components, modules and sub-systems, industrial lasers, automotive components, medical devices and sensors. Fabrinet employ approximately 12,000 employees worldwide. Its major production is done in Thailand, with additional facilities in the UK and the US. Its total revenues for the fiscal year 2019 (ended in June, 2019) increased by 15.5% YoY to $1.58 billion, mainly as a result of a strong demand for optical communications products.