For the first time in recent memory, Irvine’s Broadcom Corp. didn’t buoy hiring on the Business Journal’s annual list of Orange County’s largest chipmakers.
The Irvine-based communications chipmaker stayed relatively flat at 2,005 local workers, up just eight people from a year earlier.
Broadcom had a hiring freeze, some layoffs and then some selective hires within the past year or so.
The company still easily tops our list, despite breaking a multiyear expansion.
Last year, Broadcom added some 230 local workers. In 2007, it added 168 workers.
With Broadcom flat, the county’s 21 largest chipmakers posted a 3% loss in total workers to 4,672.
Without Broadcom, the remaining 20 chipmakers were down 6% to 2,667 workers.
Last year, the companies on the list saw a 14% gain, helped mostly by hiring at Broadcom.
This year, No. 3 Irvine-based Microsemi Corp. did the heavy lifting with a gain of 21%, or 70 people, for a total of 402 local employees.
Microsemi was one of five companies that posted gains this year. Six saw jobs losses. Eight were partial or full Business Journal estimates.
Fabless Cos.
The list mostly is made up of what are known as “fabless” chip companies, which design chips but don’t operate factories to produce them. Fabless chipmakers have their chips made by contractors that are mostly in Asia.
The exceptions are Microsemi and No. 2 Tower Semiconductor Ltd., which operates a chip plant in Newport Beach.
The site used to be the headquarters of Jazz Semiconductor Inc., which Tower bought for $170 million in stock and debt in 2008 (see story, page 1).
The company has some 600 workers here, down 15.5% from a year earlier. After the buyout, Tower embarked on a cost-cutting plan where it eliminated some positions at Jazz that were duplicated at Tower.
Tower also operates two fabs in Israel.
Last year’s list saw a lot of changes due to a wave of consolidation and reorganization.
This year, the consolidation slowed some—there was even one divestiture—and two newcomers were added.
No. 6 Woburn, Mass.-based Skyworks Solu-tions Inc., which has operations in Irvine, bought Irvine-based startup Axiom Microde-vices Inc. in June for undisclosed terms.
Axiom Microdevices, which had some 40 workers here, makes chips that help cell phones get better reception.
Skyworks Solutions was created in 2002, when No. 4 Newport Beach chipmaker Conexant Systems Inc. combined it with Woburn-based Alpha Industries.
Skyworks reported that it had 208 workers here, which includes Axiom workers that joined their new parent. Skyworks still was down 25% from a year earlier.
The company also did some restructuring this year as it shifted focus to faster-growing markets, according to spokeswoman Pilar Barrigas.
“Some of these changes impacted our Irvine facility,” she said.
At its peak, Skyworks had some 500 workers here.
Also new to the list is No. 8 Santa Clara-based Marvell Semiconductor Inc., which has maintained an office in Aliso Viejo for some time but hasn’t appeared on the list.
The company, which makes chips for cell phones, came to OC by way of an acquisition.
In 2005, it paid $225 million for the slumping disk drive controller business of Aliso Viejo-based QLogic Corp., a maker of electronics for data storage networks.
Marvell recently signed a lease for a larger office in Aliso Viejo for some 90 workers—most of whom are engineers.
Another newcomer is No. 21 Laguna Niguel-based Symwave Inc., which last year relocated to OC from San Diego after a former Broadcom executive was recruited to run it.
Symwave makes chips for the next generation of universal serial bus ports, the most popular way of connecting consumer electronics to a PC.
In August, Hauppauge, N.Y.-based Standard Microsystems Corp. took a stake in Symwave with a $4 million investment.
The company maintains a small office of about 30 workers in San Diego and another 60 in China.
No. 11 Costa Mesa’s Semicoa Semiconduc-tors Inc. returned to the list after its short time as part of Microsemi, which bought the smaller rival for $25 million in 2007.
After 40 years as a privately held company, Semicoa regained its independence as part of a settlement the Department of Justice struck with Microsemi, which faced an antitrust lawsuit after the government looked into the deal as creating a monopoly on a certain type of chips.
Microsemi and Semicoa make what industry insiders call “high reliability” chips, which go into devices that need to perform under extreme conditions in which failures can be costly.
Microsemi agreed to undo the deal to settle the suit and sold off Semicoa to Los Angeles-based Vance Street Capital LLC in August.
Semicoa is busy hiring executives and workers—many who were laid off after Microsemi bought it.
It now has about 81 workers here.
Despite the undone deal, Microsemi continued its strategy of rolling up smaller players.
The maker of chips for military and industrial uses posted the biggest employee gain on the list due to two small acquisitions.
It paid $20 million for La Mirada-based Babcock Inc., a maker of power controllers and sensors for the military.
In June, Microsemi bought Irvine-based startup Nexsem Inc., a maker of chips that manage power in consumer electronics, for undisclosed terms.
