Oxfordshire's business of the year is making 150 people redundant after demand slowed for one of its key products.

Fibre-optic components maker Bookham Technology said 100 jobs would go at its Milton Park, near Abingdon, headquarters, while another 50 posts are go at a manufacturing base at Swindon.

The job losses come a month after Bookham, which beat more than 100 companies to the business of the year title, warned of a "marked downturn" in demand for its mini-DIL optical chips, which transmit and receive optical signals. The firm created hundreds of new jobs after its stock market flotation, which took it into the FTSE 100. A fall in its share price last year saw it drop out of the FTSE 100.

Bookham designs, manufactures and markets components that integrate optical processing functions on a single silicon chip using high-volume production methods.

The loss of jobs at Bookham comes two months after mobile computer group Psion announced it was closing its Teklogix division, at Milton Park, with the loss of more than 100 jobs as part of a cost-cutting exercise and moving operations to Canada.

The company said the reorganisation would leave it better placed to support its DWDM products, which manage the transmission of signals up and down a fibre-optic network.

Bookham said it hoped the job losses could be achieved through voluntary redundancy packages.

Most of the cuts will be within its mini-DIL manufacturing operation, as well as other manufacturing-related engineering posts.

In February, Bookham said losses in the three months to December 31 amounted to £8.5m, against £4.5m for the same period a year earlier. However, revenues for the quarter also jumped by more than 400 per cent to £11.5m.

At the time, the firm said a reduction in orders from US telecom equipment giant Nortel Networks was a major factor behind the slowdown in demand for its mini-DIL product.