Svetlana

The company was established in 1889 as the Ya. M. Aivaz (Russian: Я. М. Айваз) Factory. Svetlana was a major producer of vacuum tubes. In 1937, the Soviet Union purchased a tube assembly line from RCA, including production licenses and initial staff training, and installed it on the St Petersburg plant. US-licensed tubes were produced since then.

Since 2001, New Sensor Corp. has been holding the rights for the Svetlana vacuum tube brand for the US and Canada. The New Sensor tubes are actually manufactured at the Expo-pul factory (former Reflektor plant) in Saratov. Tubes manufactured by Svetlana in Saint Petersburg still bear the "winged С" (cyrillic S) logo (see the image below) but no longer the name Svetlana.

In 2014, businessman Andrey Berezin joined the shareholders of Svetlana. One of his entities, AuditExpert, acquired a stake in the enterprise. At the same time, Berezin himself took a seat on the plant's Board of Directors.

In 2017 the company announced a 3-billion-ruble modernization plan.

In September 2021, AuditExpert sold its stake in Svetlana (Berezin had previously exited from the capital of AuditExpert). In May 2022, Berezin left the plant's Board of Directors.

The Svetlana Association produces a variety of electronic and microelectronic instruments, including transmitting and modulator tubes for all frequency ranges; X-band broadband passive TR limiter; KU-band broadband TR tube; klystron amplifiers; X-ray tubes; portable X-ray units for medicine and industry; high-frequency fast response thyristors; transistors; integrated microcircuits; microcomputers; microcontrollers; microcalculators; ultrasonic delay lines; receiving tubes; process equipment for the manufacture of electronic engineering items. Vacuum tubes currently in production include the 6550, 6L6, EL34, and KT88.