Giant chipmaker Broadcom Inc., a new member of the trillion-dollar market cap club, is maintaining a hefty presence in Irvine, including software managers and semiconductor engineers.
Broadcom (Nasdaq: AVGO), with headquarters in Palo Alto, easily retained its No. 1 spot on this yearโs Business Journal list of largest chipmakers by headcount, keeping its local number at 1,300.
Broadcom joined the $1 trillion valuation club in December, where other members include Meta, Alphabet and Tesla. It is now one of only eight U.S.-based public tech companies to currently hold that mark.
Broadcom, founded by Henry Samueli and Henry Nicholas in 1991 in Irvine, was sold to Avago Technologies in 2016 for $37 billion in cash and stock, with the buyer keeping the OC firmโs name and local operations.
The overall OC headcount for the 18 chipmakers surveyed by the Business Journal was 4,078, inching up about 0.2% from a year ago.
Israel-based Tower Semiconductor (Nasdaq: TSEM) was second, as its Newport Beach headcount was steady at 860, despite a series of temporary furloughs last year.
Irvine-based Skyworks Solution Inc. was No. 3 on this yearโs Business Journal list, as its local employee number edged up 7.4% to 563 (Nasdaq: SWKS).
Data Center Gains Outpace Rest: Marvell
Coming in at No. 4 was Marvell Technology Inc., which has its headquarters in Santa Clara and has 320 local employees (Nasdaq: MRVL).
โSales of chips for data centers (processors, optical devices switches) rose while sales to telecommunications carriers, automotive customers and enterprises declined with an overall industry decline in those three markets,โ a Marvell spokesperson told the Business Journal.
The spokesperson added: โData center gains, however, outpaced them. Data centers now account for around 70% of revenue. A good portion of our data center revenue is for chips for AI systems.โ He noted that โrevenue is rising.โ
Apple Inc., which is Skyworksโ largest customer, was at No. 5. The company for years reportedly has been seeking to build a separate chip-making presence in Irvine, though details have been difficult to obtain (Nasdaq: AAPL).
Aliso Viejo-based Indie Semiconductor Inc., which develops chips for automobiles, was steady at 100 employees (Nasdaq: INDI), staying at the ninth spot.
Syntiant, Movandi, Faraday
Irvine-based Faraday Semi Inc. surged 50% from 10 employees to 15 as of January.
โThe forecast for semiconductor in 2025 indicates a blend of new opportunities and slowdown in several mature segments,โ a Faraday spokesperson told the Business Journal.
โAI and associated chipsets are key driving factors shaping the semiconductor industryโs future. This may lead to short impact on different companies in various regions, depending on their area of focus, thus OCโs chipmakers may see a reduction of numbers of employees,โ according to the spokesperson.
Others on the Business Journal list include the following Irvine-based firms:
Syntiant, the chip and AI company, has 42 local employees while the companywide headcount jumped to nearly 1,700 with a key acquisition.
The headcount at Menlo Microsystems dipped from 44 a year ago to 38 at the start of January. The company is aiming for more defense work (see story, page 3).
Movandi, a 5G wireless technology equipment maker, trimmed its workforce to 36 from 40.
Desmond Celo and Emily Santiago-Molina contributed to this report.