AROUND 100 highly-skilled jobs have been secured after a US firm confirmed a deal for a North-East microelectronics factory, The Northern Echo can reveal.

Kaiam Corporation is taking over Compound Photonics’ base in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham.

Confirmation of the agreement comes after bosses last year told the Echo they were in talks with interested parties.

Workers found out about Kaiam’s approach yesterday.

Bosses at the firm say the expansion will allow it to continue making transceivers, which help transmit and receive data that is uploaded to the internet and stored in data centres.

They added it also provides scope to work on next generation circuits for advanced transceivers.

Bardia Pezeshki, chief executive at Kaiam, which has a base in California, said: “The Newton Aycliffe site is a world-class facility in both capabilities and scale for producing devices.

“This acquisition not only allows us to ramp product in the short-term, but gives us access to advanced processes at low cost that we will need in the long-term.”

Compound previously took on the Aycliffe plant from RF Micro Devices in 2013, when that company took work back to the US but Brian Bolger, chief financial officer, said its focus has changed.

He added: “The company no longer needed an in-house laser facility at Aycliffe, and is very pleased its team are joining a fast-growing company in Kaiam.

“As part of the transaction, Compound Photonics is investing in Kaiam to become a significant shareholder, and looks forward to Kaiam’s continued success.”

The Aycliffe plant was classed as the world’s most advanced microchip factory when it was officially opened for Fujitsu by the Queen in 1991.

However, the building closed when the Japanese technology firm buckled under a worldwide collapse in memory chip prices.

It was subsequently bought by Filtronic, which makes and supplies antennas and e-band transceivers that increase mobile phone mast performances and network data carrying, before being taken on by RFMD in a £12.5m deal a decade ago.