If you've ever used a smartphone, Bluetooth, or power generated by a solar cell, your life has been touched by the technology created at Lehighton Electronics.

The Franklin Township-based manufacturer produces measurement equipment, which is primarily used to ensure quality and proper performance of semiconductor chips used in the electronic industry.While computers primarily use silicon semiconductors, most electronics that rely on speed also use gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductors. While GaAs semiconductors are significantly more expensive than silicon, they are necessary for more complex technology such as cellphones, which act as a highly complex radio and transmitter."Cellphones, OnStar, Bluetooth - at the heart of these things are the products that our customers use our products to make," said Dr. Mark Benjamin, chief technology officer at Lehighton Electronics. "If it has a battery and communicates with another device, it likely has to do with our industry."He noted that GaAs semiconductors are also used in military radios and radar.Lehighton Electronics deals primarily with customers manufacturing these GaAs semiconductor chips. Their product and measuring equipment is used to make these chips more efficiently, faster and ultimately less expensive.These cost savings have been passed on to customers, Benjamin said. The price of smartphones has come down significantly, as have the costs of most technologies using GaAs semiconductors - a price drop perhaps most recently seen in LED lights. LED bulbs were once very expensive, costing more than $50 per bulb, but can now be found for less than $5 to $10."There's a learning curve. The more you make of something, the better you get at it, and the cheaper it gets," he said. "We're helping with that."Their work floor currently houses nearly a dozen of these measuring devices in various states of construction and testing. Employees gather the necessary parts off shelves and custom build each product to the customer's needs. A small machine shop is tucked into a back room, and the room is lined with work benches for assembling and hand-soldering materials.The company produces about two dozen machines each year and also calibrates and repairs machines currently in use. Some are simple devices, used by small manufacturers and college university technology departments. These machines work more slowly, and require more calculations to accurately test semiconductor wafers, which will eventually become chips. Other devices are state-of-the-art, using robotic arms and sorters to systematically test and categorize entire cassettes of wafers.Each semiconductor wafer is created with a pure base or substrate. Onto this substrate, materials are deposited in thin, precise layers. Equipment built by Lehighton Electronics allows manufacturers to test wafers in several steps of the process. This allows their customers to focus on high yields and rapid manufacturing."It's a very complex structure," Benjamin said of these wafers. "You want to catch problems as early as possible."He said Lehighton Electronics holds an exclusive patent for "nondestructive" testing methods, which allow manufacturers to test wafers early in the process without destroying them. Traditional testing involves building a complete chip, then running electricity through the chip until it fails and is destroyed. These chips are now worthless, and since they can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars, destroying chips to test them is an expensive proposition.Nondestructive testing also means that every wafer can be tested for proper performance before they have complete chips on them, which saves a lot of time if there is a problem in production. This has led their customers to have higher yields and ultimately less-expensive products."Our customers are saving a lot of money, especially over the life of the equipment," he said, noting that models have shown that some companies save millions of dollars after investing in their exclusive nondestructive testing device."They refer to our products as the Lehighton. We're the Kleenex of the industry," Benjamin said.Approximately 70 percent of their customers are currently overseas. They have a strong customer base in Southeast Asia, a hot spot for technology manufacturing. In addition to working with these high-volume facilities, Lehighton Electronics also works with smaller customers down to university laboratories.Company founder Austin Blew is a lifelong resident of Lehighton. He originally began his business in Mahoning Township in 1963, and the location made sense. It was near family and his current home, and close to businesses such as Bell Labs and other electronics companies in the Lehigh Valley and Reading area.While most people associate technology with the West Coast and Silicon Valley, California's technology boom was largely limited to computers and silicon products. Most companies based in the U.S. that use GaAs semiconductors have always been on the East Coast."This is one of the reasons we're here," he said. "A lot of these things, advancements and changes in technology, we've been involved with since the beginning. We've been in the industry for a long time."He noted that it was also important to him and his local mentors to reduce brain-drain in the Carbon County area. Many young adults with an interest in science or technology move away - including Blew. He began his career at IBM in New York and helped to create the first solid state hard drive. After working for several other companies and commuting to Lehighton on the weekends to see ailing family members, he decided to bring his knowledge back home.Today, the walls Lehighton Electronics are lined with local and national awards and patents from around the world."The majority of our products are now shipped and used overseas," Blew said. "We started locally, but we've really become international."