US TECHNOLOGY firm Xilinx has announced 60 new jobs for Ireland as part of a $50 million (€39 million) expansion of its electronics engineering operations in Dublin and Cork.
The semiconductor firm designs microchips for the electronics and communications industries. It is a leading provider of programmable logic devices with a market share of nearly 50 per cent.
The jobs will be in the areas of engineering, product development and research, according to Kevin Cooney, managing director of Xilinx in Europe.
The company is to take on 45 engineering staff at its European headquarters in Dublin and its engineering centre in Cork. A further 15 people will also be hired across a broad range of disciplines.
Mr Cooney said the bulk of the 60 new jobs would be created within the next two years, with the $50 million investment taking place over a five-year period.
Welcoming the announcement, IDA Ireland chief executive Barry O’Leary said: “This strategic and multimillion RD investment from Xilinx strengthens Ireland’s position as a leading location for cutting-edge research in the technology space.”
He added: “This highly significant investment from a global leading ICT company is a further endorsement of Ireland’s continuing success in attracting FDI.”
Minister for Jobs Richard Bruton said the investment and announcement of new jobs was “a great boost of confidence” for Ireland and “what the economy needs”.
Xilinx currently employs more than 250 people at its European headquarters in Citywest in Dublin, where it operates a research, development, engineering and IT centre. It employs a further 20 people at its operations in Belfast and six people in Cork.
The company had revenue of $2.2 billion in the last fiscal year, with 27 per cent of corporate revenue coming from Dublin. The Irish unit of the company has paid dividends exceeding $1.8 billion (€1.4 billion) to its parent in the past decade.
The company has been in business here since 1995. Since then it has invested more than €125 million in its Irish operations, which have added new functions over the years.
In 2005 the firm located a €7.5 million research facility, the first Xilinx research labs outside the US, at its European headquarters in Citywest.
In 2008 it established a new global development division, Xilinx Customer Engineering, in Dublin, while in 2011 it acquired the Belfast-based telecommunications technology firm Omiino.
In April 2009 it announced it was making 130 staff in Dublin redundant as part of global cost-cutting measures by the company. The company ceased some of its manufacturing and testing here, transferring the work to its operation in Singapore and to existing outsourced service providers based outside Ireland.
