Ireland is a strategic IT and engineering hub for chip giant

Qualcomm is one of the world’s largest makers of semiconductors and an early pioneer in mobile communications. Headquartered in San Diego, California, it employs over 50,000 people worldwide and reported revenues of $44.2 billion in 2022. 

Worldwide engineering support from Ireland

Ireland is a core IT and engineering hub for Qualcomm, delivering some of the world's most innovative chip design solutions and scaling to a team of over 450 people since 2013 in Cork.

Key aspects of the Ireland operation include an integrated circuit (IC) design centre of excellence, that first established in 2015. This team is now a core part of the SoC and Intellectual Property organisation in Qualcomm and its team of world class research and development engineers are working on some of the most advanced chip designs for Qualcomm globally

An EMEA IT Operations Centre was also established in 2013 that today supports Qualcomm’s engineering organisation for security, networking and database administration activities, ensuring that its EMEA teams’ core IT needs are running effectively. 

Complex skills on tap in Ireland

In 2020, Qualcomm opened a new office in Penrose Docks in Cork City following a €78 million investment. This includes a state-of the-art secure Security Penetration Lab. Skills on site include security, power management, CPU design, MC design system validation, operations, and SOC (systems on a chip). The Irish operation has skills in multiple programming languages including C, C++, Embedded C, System Verilog, RTL, Python. The company is also actively engaged in the local community and tech ecosystem through the First Robotics Lego STEM outreach programme, Cyber Ireland, MIDAS, and AmCham.

Qualcomm Ireland has also developed strong relationships with academic and research institutes including the Tyndall National Institute (a specialist in micro and nano systems and photonics) and Irish universities including University College Cork (UCC), Munster Tech University (MTU), University of Limerick (UL), University College Dublin (UCD) and Trinity College Dublin (TCD).
 

Qualcomm in Ireland by the Numbers

• Two strategic functions: IC design and EMEA IT operations 
• 450+ world-class R&D engineers employed at Qualcomm Cork
• €78 million new office investment in 2020 with new functions added
• Qualcomm has forged links with 6 third-level education institutes