Campbell Newman, Premier of Queensland, Australia has officially opened a new state-of-the-art microchip processing operation at Cochlear’s Brisbane facility.
This high-tech innovation, housed in a new cleanroom, is part of a A$3m upgrade of Cochlear’s facilities in Queensland and will play a major role in growing the company’s manufacturing capabilities and support its ongoing global expansion.
Cochlear, headquartered in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, specialises in the manufacture of implantable hearing solutions.
Chris Roberts, Chief Executive of Cochlear, described the new cleanroom, which is used for the manufacture of electronic components, as an integral part of the company’s local operation.
‘We have been manufacturing in Queensland since 2007 and have invested heavily here since that time,’ he said.
Around 200 people are employed at the Brisbane facility, with more than 400 different types of products produced each year through a combination of high-tech automation and painstaking manual micro assembly work.
‘These products go into the external components of our cochlear implant systems – essentially the sound processing ‘brains’ of our products,’ added Roberts. ‘Indeed, they will be going into the world’s most advanced cochlear implant system, the Nucleus 6, which we have recently launched.’
The firm says this product’s availability in Australia will depend on regulatory approval, which is expected during the year. The rollout is underway in Europe after its sale in the region was recently approved.
