US tech company to establish facility at business park and create 60 jobs

TECH company Altera is to establish its European Shared Services Centre at Cork Airport Business Park in a move that is expected to create 60 jobs over the next five years.

Altera, a San Jose, California-based Nasdaq traded company, is a leading manufacturer of programmable logic devices, one of the fastest-growing sectors of the semiconductor industry.

Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Harney yesterday announced Altera's commitment to setting up the facility with the support of IDA Ireland.

Initially, Altera plans to create up to 60 hi-level jobs, over the next five years, for people with a range of qualifications.

Altera, with sales of $827 million (€686m) in 2003, employs close to 2,000 people and has research and development facilities in Britain, Penang, Malaysia, California and Canada.

The Tánaiste, welcoming the investment, said: "Altera has confirmed that the Cork centre will be a key site for the company in Europe. This decision is an important recognition of Ireland's continuing ability to be a cost-effective base and a leading location for such strategic high-level support services centres."

Altera will centralise a number of key functions in Cork to achieve greater efficiencies. Among the functions to be located in the Cork include management of the complex network of independent European distributors; product pricing; contract negotiations; and financial shared services.

Altera Corporation European business operations vice president Tim Colleran said: "we decided to locate our European business operations in Ireland because of the country's track record in supporting international services centres and its unique and long established relationships with the semiconductor industry. The support being provided by IDA continues to be a critical factor in successfully starting the operations of the centre."

Europe accounts for about 25% of Altera's worldwide sales and its European headquarters will remain in High Wycombe, England.

Altera invented the first reprogrammable logic device more than 20 years ago and its original products are still used in devices being built today.

Altera's product portfolio ranges from low-density, low-cost PLDs for use in high-volume cost-sensitive applications such as DVD players, digital TVs and video recorders, to high-density PLDs that allow an entire system to be implemented on one single chip that previously required a full printed circuit board, such as those in routers, mobile base stations and computer servers.