Twenty new jobs for Xilinx Ireland

04-04-2008

by Emmet Ryan

Xilinx is to create around 20 new jobs in Dublin as part of its new global Customer Engineering Division.

The new division is being established at the semiconductor firm's European headquarters in Dublin and Xilinx announced on Friday that Lionel Barker will be general manager and senior director of the new operation. The company employs 3,800 staff globally with 400 at its European headquarters in Ireland.

Xilinx says the new division will help deliver products to market faster, more cost-effectively, and with optimal performance. Xilinx's design arm already works closely with many of the major players in the electronics industry to create programmable devices for a wide range of advanced systems.

"The real role of this new division is to work on the commercialisation of ideas to help bring them out of the lab to our customers," Barker told ENN. "This should lead to faster uptake of new products and technology."

In total the new division will account for 50 positions worldwide. Of these, around two thirds will be based in Dublin. The new jobs will require senior level technical postgraduate qualifications as well as the ability to deal at a research and development level with the company's global customers.

Barker's position will focus on innovation and engineering specifically for customers, working closely with Xilinx Research Laboratories, which also has research operations in Dublin.

The creation of the new division forms part of a wider innovation strategy on Xilinx's part which has seen the firm foster its own internal research talent while also concentrating on establishing industry and academic alliances. Along with a dedicated USD250 million global venture capital fund, these initiatives are aimed at yielding new innovations which can be applied into the commercial environment.

The decision by Xilinx to base the new operation in Dublin was welcomed by industry groups. "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," said Barry O'Leary, chief executive of the IDA.