Xilinx sees Dublin R&D lab as key link

Xilinx is hardly a household name, despite being in Ireland since 1995 and employing more than 500 people at its European headquarters on the outskirts of Dublin, its largest facility outside the United States. But the chances are that if you have any interaction with electronic devices such as a mobile phone or a PC, you come into contact with its technology on a daily basis.

The company, which has invested more than €125 million in the Irish economy since its arrival here a decade ago, last week opened a new €7.5 million research facility, in association with IDA Ireland.

The research lab will initially employ 10 staff, who will engage in pure research in areas that could create new business opportunities for the company. The centre will also collaborate with other commercial research centres in Ireland and Europe, including Dublin-based Bell Labs and Irish universities.

Although it does not sell products under its own brand name, Xilinx is a world leader in programmable logic - the clever pieces of silicon that sit alongside processors and memory and give electronic devices their intelligence. Its chips are used in a variety of applications from mobile phone base stations to graphics cards for PCs.

The company does not manufacture silicon itself, employing third parties to produce silicon on its behalf. It concentrates on design, marketing and R&D.

The market for such products was worth US $3 billion (€2.49 billion) in 2004 and Xilinx has a 53 per cent market share.

The Xilinx research lab, the first such facility the company has established outside the US, will engage in research in networks and will employ PhD graduates with industry experience.

"This investment by Xilinx Ireland in R&D [ research and development] further enhances the company's profile as a model of how an international company in Ireland can develop beyond its original mandate to become a key link in the company's global chain," said the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin.

"The company has expanded from an initial manufacturing operation to a European headquarters operation, with global responsibility for certain product lines and home to corporate centres of excellence, with a strong culture of creativity and innovation."

The move was welcomed by the Government, the IDA and academics, who see it as an endorsement of Ireland's R&D capabilities. "One researcher typically creates 10 other jobs, so in that sense I think it is a very wise decision to try and attract more research to the country," says Xilinx's chief technology officer Ivo Bolsens. "Adding the knowledge component to the products that Ireland is producing and selling is the only way you can be competitive."

The facility is recruiting experienced engineers with PhDs to engage in research in networking. Bolsens wants entrepreneurs with a technical bent who can see the disruptive potential of new technologies.

"From a strategic perspective, I strongly believe there is a lot of R&D competence around Europe and also in Ireland," says Bolsens.

"I am personally encouraging people to have an open attitude in terms of co-operating from a research perspective. I think it would be a mistake that you would execute research in this company isolated from what is happening in the rest of the community."

Unlike other pure research facilities, Bolsens encourages his researchers to set milestones so their success can be judged. Researchers are not penalised for missing milestones but he believes they should be able to explain why they missed them.

Before the centre was established, Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) organised a tour of Irish universities for Bolsens, and put him in touch with academics and researchers operating in relevant areas. He believes the level of research in Ireland is ahead of Europe and that organisations such as SFI and IDA Ireland are very employer-minded.

Bolsens encourages his researchers to interact with the other parts of the business and thinks this needs to be encouraged. "A lot of the R&D that is happening in Europe in the end is being commercialised in the US," says Bolsens. "Why is that? Why is the US so much better at turning research into dollars?

"I think one of the reasons is the strong marketing capability and view that US people have. They are much stronger in marketing their research and results than we are. In Europe we sometimes rely on having research speak for itself. That's a mistake."