The top chipmakers with operations in Orange County—Broadcom, Tower Semiconductor and Skyworks Solutions—remain the largest employers of their type locally.
Now the question is whether Apple Inc. plans to start making significant inroads into the local semiconductor scene.
The Business Journal’s latest listing of the top semiconductor and chipmaking companies as measured by local headcount comes amid the global chip shortage that has slowed down car production worldwide and raised jitters among other manufacturers as well.
Overall, the top 20 OC chipmakers on the list employed 4,136 people as of this month, for an almost 7.7% increase in headcount over the past 12 months, according to estimates and company figures.
Broadcom (Nasdaq: AVGO), which got its start in Irvine but is now based in San Jose, kept the No. 1 spot, with an estimated 1,300 employees at its FivePoint Gateway office campus. Tower Semiconductor, which is headquartered in Israel but has much of its domestic operations in Newport Beach, stayed in second place with an estimated 800.
Skyworks Solutions (Nasdaq: SWKS), Orange County’s fourth-largest publicly traded company with a $24 billion valuation, increased its headcount by 16.5% to 530 local employees.
“As new wireless connectivity standards expand globally, Skyworks actively recruits talented team members across our engineering, business and manufacturing operations,” a company spokesperson told the Business Journal on Jan. 18. “The increase in headcount over the past year is due in part to the company’s acquisition of the Infrastructure and Automotive Business of Silicon Labs completed during the summer of 2021.”
Irvine’s Reach
“Irvine is a very interesting place from the standpoint of chip activity,” said Harsh Kumar, a senior research analyst for semiconductors at Piper Sandler.
Kumar added: “Irvine has always been an area which has been very rich in the semiconductor base and I think that goes back to the aerospace and defense heritage of that whole Orange County area.”
While this year’s chipmaker rankings stayed stable for the top 11 companies, electronics giant Apple may be seeking to shake things up.
The nearly $3 trillion consumer electronics and software behemoth based in Cupertino is in the early stages of setting up a wireless chip development team in Irvine, moving into one of the area’s core tech industries.
For Skyworks, it is particularly important because the local company says that Apple has accounted for more than 50% of its sales for the past three fiscal years. Broadcom reported that nearly 20% of its fiscal 2021 sales were to Apple.
Kumar, who is also Piper Sandler managing director, says “Irvine is a very fertile area for Apple to go look for talent.” He says Apple’s goal with the Irvine outpost in part may be to keep track of the local chips it’s buying.
“It’s a very good idea when you’re buying these very high-specification chips to have somebody in the company that can understand what they’re buying,” Kumar told the Business Journal on Jan. 18.
“It’s one thing to specify the specs but it’s a completely different process when you’re buying these chips to actually make sure the chips meet the specifications.”
As for the global semiconductor shortage, he says: “We are starting to hear a handful of companies that are basically starting to say the chip shortage is expected to ease in the next year or so.”
“We think the process is underway,” according to Kumar.
Apple Postings
Apple had posted about 10 local jobs related to the chip project as of last month on LinkedIn, with another eight that may be connected, according to Business Journal research.
The positions include analog/mixed-signal design engineer and wireless design verification engineer.
Wireless chip uses include cellphones, iPads and smart watches made by Apple.
A specific location for the local base of operations hasn’t been disclosed.
Apple currently doesn’t have sizeable office operations in OC.
Movers
Among some of the other notable chipmakers on the Business Journal list and their OC headcounts:
• MaxLinear Inc., based in Carlsbad but with a large presence in Irvine, was steady at No. 6 as its headcount moved up to 143 from an estimated 120 last year.
• Indie Semiconductor in Aliso Viejo, which makes chips for the automotive industry, added 22 employees to 74, holding steady at No. 11.
• Syntiant Corp., which presented a new collaboration with wireless power and charging company Energous Corp. at the CES tech show in Las Vegas earlier this month, moved up one notch to No. 12 as its headcount inched up by one to 61.
• Movandi, which has an exclusive U.S. partnership with Verizon to deploy the Irvine-based company’s repeater technology, also moved up one notch, this time to No. 14, as its employee headcount increased by four to 54.
