Onsemi Bucharest Expansion Drives Intelligent Power Solutions

Just over a year ago, I interviewed onsemi’s CEO Hassane El-Khoury on the company’s direction and strategy. As well as the steps the company is making to guarantee supply to its customers, the main focus of the talk was around intelligent power and sensing solutions. In the interview, El-Khoury explained his integrated approach to intelligent power as “the FET, and also what drives the FET, what controls the FET, and what protects the FET”. A lot of the devices that drive, control and protect the FET are designed in the company’s design centre in Romania, and so it is no surprise to hear that onsemi are expanding that facility. The design centre is also responsible for the entire development cycle of the products, including layout, test development, project management and product marketing for the analog, mixed-signal and non-volatile memory ICs that are designed there, along with integrating them into the intelligent solutions and applications that the company is prioritising.

The new Bucharest Design Center will design semiconductors for high temperature and high endurance use, isolated drivers for automotive applications and high precision parts for intelligent sensing. It contains both 3000m² of new office space and hi-tech laboratories and will compliment the existing onsemi operation in the city, which onsemi gained control of originally through the acquisition of Catalyst Semiconductor in 2008. The company already employs over 100 employees in the city.

The new design centre is located at The Light One campus, in Bucharest, close to Politehnica, a university where onsemi works closely with the faculty. It will further strengthen the existing relationship with the university, where onsemi experts teach the latest trends in electronic design and technologies. The high-tech space will enable onsemi to continue to grow and expand its activities in semiconductor development.

Brian Pickard, Vice President and General Manager Integrated Circuit, Protection & Signal Division at onsemi, who is responsible for the new design centre, describes how it fits into onsemi’s overall strategy, “the products we we design in Bucharest include the gate drivers, current sensing amplifiers and the memory that connect all of the pieces of an intelligent power solution together. Then the MCU that does all of that decision making needs to be connected to all those power devices, control loops and measurement circuits to make ensure that the system is operating properly. The team from Bucharest have a deep understanding of the individual products, combined with a broad view of electronic systems, which provides them with a vital role in developing the intelligent power and sensing solutions that are an integral part of the company’s strategy.”

onsemi’s is currently recruiting for the new design centre here.