The US company is expanding its presence in Ireland and seeking to snap up engineering talent from the country’s universities.
Arizona-headquartered tech company Microchip Technology will establish a new development centre in Cork that will create up to 200 engineering jobs.
The centre represents an investment of $20m from Microchip and is expected to open during the first quarter of this year. It will be located close to Cork city centre and will incorporate an engineering lab. The centre will also support Microchip’s regional customer support.
Microchip manufactures microcontroller, mixed-signal, analogue and Flash-IP integrated circuits. It has fabrication facilities in Arizona and other US locations as well as Thailand and the Philippines. The company has more than 120,000 customers across the industrial, automotive, aerospace, consumer, communications and computing markets.
Last summer, Microchip credited strength in sales during the pandemic to the shift to a work-from-home environment as well as the increased need for medical devices and hospital equipment. However, factory shutdowns across the automotive industry also impacted the business.
The Cork development centre will expand Microchip’s existing presence in Ireland. The company already has a foothold in Cork as well as operations in Dublin and Ennis, Co Clare.
This new centre joins a network of similar development centres across Europe. It will integrate with many of Microchip’s business units.
Up to 60 new roles will be created over the next three years, with the centre expected to employ around 200 within the next seven years.
To fill these roles, the company will be seeking engineers for integrated circuit design and testing, hardware and software system design and applications development. It will also be hiring for field and customer support.
Initially, the development centre will focus on mixed-signal integrated circuit design, applications and software development for high-speed networking, timing and synchronisation products, high-voltage power management devices and solutions, high-reliability integrated power systems and field-programmable gate arrays.
“Cork was chosen for the development centre as it is the second-largest city in Ireland, with a growing pool of talented engineers,” said Ganesh Moorthy, president and CEO-elect of Microchip.
“Availability of analogue and mixed-signal talent is another key factor in selecting Cork,” he added.
‘Strong opportunities for graduates’
The announcement comes just ahead of Engineers Week in Ireland, and Taoiseach Micheál Martin, TD, said that the Cork development centre is “further testament to the depth of engineering and research talent in the country”.
Microchip expects that close partnerships with Irish universities will incorporate internships at the centre. It will also become part of Microchip’s global New College Graduate programme and will collaborate with Skillnet, the Irish Government agency committed to enterprise-led workforce development.
“The partnerships established with leading Irish universities will also ensure strong opportunities for graduates in the growing digital economy,” Martin added.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, TD, cited a “deep pool of talent in Cork and the south-west” as a reason for companies such as Microchip investing in Ireland.
Microchip’s investment is supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland.
“Today’s announcement by Microchip is very welcome,” said IDA Ireland CEO Martin Shanahan. “The company’s investment in a new development centre aligns with IDA’s strategy to attract engineering development activity to Ireland and to secure investments for regional locations.”
