Mr Colm Fitzpatrick (left), chief executive, Teradyne Ireland and Mr Wayne Morrison, assembly business manager, Teradyne, at the announcement of the technology business campus for Cavan town. Photograph Jason Clarke Teradyne, the US interconnection systems manufacturer, is to invest £50 million (€63.49 million) in a new technology business campus in Cavan town, which will employ 740 people over the next five years.
The company already employs 320 people in Blanchardstown, Co Dublin, which is Teradyne's European design and manufacturing base for all European and domestic multinational customers.
The Cavan operation will be the new manufacturing facility for its expanding European business. It is part of Teradyne's strategy for the development of its worldwide business in components that allow computers, Internet and mobile phone industries to send larger amounts of data at faster rates.
The development, on a 94-acre greenfield site at Cullies, Ballyhaise Road, will become a high-quality technology business campus, and will involve the construction of 220,000 sq ft of high-quality, custom-designed buildings. Teradyne will lease a 25,000 sq ft advance factory at the IDA Ireland Industrial Park, while the new plant is being built.
A further £3 million will be invested expanding its 10-year-old Blanchardstown operation which will create 90 new jobs over the same period. Sales from Blanchardstown have grown from $3.5 million (€4.15 million) a year to $140 million a year today.
Announcing the development yesterday, the Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, said that Border counties, such as Cavan, had not fared as well as other parts of the State in attracting mobile investment, due in part to the violence in the North. This investment, she said, was "testimony to the potential dividend that the continuing peace process can yield for counties on both sides of the Border".
She said the investment would impact substantially on Cavan and the north-east and the high-quality employment would provide first-class opportunities for people of the area.
Teradyne holds a leadership position in the product markets it serves. It manufactures interconnection systems that are the backbone of the high-tech equipment used in advanced telecommunications, networking systems and the Internet.
According to IDA Ireland, it is the largest manufacturer of automatic test equipment for the high-tech electronics industry, producing systems to test semiconductors, software, telecommunications systems and circuit boards.
The company operates in three segments, two-thirds of its business being Semiconductor Test Systems, while Interconnect Systems and Other Test Systems account for 25 and 11 per cent, respectively.
Teradyne employs more than 10,000 people worldwide and has operations in Japan, the US, Britain and Germany.
The company is seeking engineers, technicians, business professionals, supervisory staff, commercial personnel and skilled operators. Suitably qualified but inexperienced people also will be employed and given comprehensive in-house training, according to the chief executive of Teradyne Ireland, Mr Colm Fitzpatrick.
Mr Fitzpatrick said Cavan was chosen as the location because of its attractiveness to prospective employees and to people who might want to relocate from Dublin.
Cavan offered people more affordable properties and this, coupled with the combination of a bluechip employer and the many lifestyle advantages should prove a big draw.
