US SEMICONDUCTOR firm Xilinx has established a new global development division which will be based at its European headquarters in Dublin and headed up by Irish executive Lionel Barker.
The move is a further endorsement by Xilinx of the Republic as a location for locating high-value global functions. In 2005, the firm located a €7.5 million research facility at its Citywest facility in Dublin.
The new function, Xilinx Customer Engineering, will ultimately employ some 50 people globally, about half of whom will be located in the capital.
Xilinx's chief technical officer, Ivo Bolsens, explained that the new unit will aim to provide customers with "solutions" rather than simply micro-electronics components, which are becoming increasingly commoditised.
"This requires us to change our behaviour from being a silicon provider to being a strategic partner. We have to try and understand our customers' applications and architecture so we can allow them focus on their 'secret sauce'".
Bolsens drew parallels between the new strategy and the change IBM has undergone since the 1990s, when it was largely a hardware company, to become one of the world's largest providers of IT services.
The group will initially focus on the automotive and wireless communications sectors and this is one of the reasons it is being run from Europe. Bolens said having a research lab in the same facility will enable the quick production of prototypes for customers.
Barker's group will provide consultancy and development services to allow customers access to the latest Xilinx technologies - even before they are released as products. "It is hard for customers to understand all of our technologies," he conceded. Links with third-party companies with expertise in specialised areas will also be key and Barker said there would be opportunities for Irish start-ups to get access to Xilinx customers.
Xilinx specialises in the design of field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), semiconductors which enforce the logic in a variety of electronics devices from mobile phone base stations to digital video recorders.
"The value of Ericsson is not that they know FPGAs but they understand the markets they sell to," said Bolens. "We can leverage the FPGA to the ultimate extent."
IDA chief executive Barry O'Leary welcomed the announcement : "I am delighted that Lionel Barker has been entrusted with this strategic global mandate and I wish him every personal and professional success in his new role.
"Securing design activities is a critical element in Ireland's ongoing evolution into an innovation-led economy. The fact that one of these three teams will also be based in Ireland is a strong endorsement of the success of both Xilinx and the talent pool available in this country."
Xilinx employs 3,800 globally with 400 located in Dublin. The company has invested more than €125 million in its Irish operations since they opened in 1995.
