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Tech labor pool is deep: AT&T, Lucent and Agere brought a talented work force to the region.(Morning Call, The (Allentown, PA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Apr. 30--Agere Systems ran a newspaper ad last week that said competitors covet its employees and have realized the Lehigh Valley is a great place for high-tech companies. Agere isn't paranoid. Two competitors have begun to recruit engineers for design offices they plan to open in the Allentown area. One company, Marvell Semiconductor, held a job fair Tuesday. If it follows through on its plans, Marvell will join a small but select group of companies based outside the Valley that have tapped into technical subspecialties in the area's work force. In the case of Marvell, it will recruit engineers with experience designing semiconductor chips for hard-disk drives and computer networking. Other companies with operations in the Valley have found a deep knowledge here of fiber-optic components and specialty semiconductor containers, known as packaging. "We have to go where the talent is," said Marvell recruiter Jason Fotenos, in an interview this month. Much of this talent was developed by AT&T in the 1980s and 1990s. The talent was further developed by its spin-off, Lucent Technologies, and later by Agere. Layoffs at Agere forced many of these people out of the area. But some now staff small firms, many of which are based in California but operate local design and manufacturing facilities based on the specific technical know-how found here. The dramatically lower cost of doing business in the Valley has helped some companies justify maintaining an additional office across the country. Most tech companies are finally experiencing healthy production levels again, after a prolonged telecommunications and semiconductor slump that hit in the early part of the decade. CyOptics is among the largest of the small tech firms that have chosen the Lehigh Valley for some operations. The fiber-optic components maker moved its headquarters from Massachusetts to Lower Macungie Township in 2003 after it acquired locally based Cenix, a maker of specialty chip containers. CyOptics employs 126 people here, up from about 110 a year ago, after it acquired TriQuint Semiconductor's optics division. "We are here because there is an amazing skill-set here," said CyOptics Chief Executive Officer Ed Coringrato, who left Lucent in 2000 to start Cenix. In addition to quality employees, CyOptics also has gained a highly-automated optics operation that once belonged to AT&T. After it acquired TriQuint, CyOptics moved to a facility in Breinigsville that was built by AT&T in 1987. The facility was passed to Lucent, and then to its spinoff, Agere, which sold it to TriQuint in 2003. Coringrato said his company has sought and found local employees with a knowledge of electronics, chip design, optical components and packaging. CyOptics makes two types of indium phosphide fiber-optic components: lasers that emit light and detectors that receive light. The components convert data in the form of electrons, or electrical signals, to photons, or beams of light. The conversion is the backbone of fiber-optic networks, which send voice, data and video signals at high speeds. In conjunction with Cray Computer, CyOptics is participating in a super-computing project funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. CyOptics has developed a specialty optical chip that helped two super computers exchange information at a speed of 80 gigabits per second. Formed from merger CyOptics competes with Apogee Photonics, which was formed when ASIP of Somerset, N.J., acquired T-Networks of Upper Macungie Township last year. The combined company, which also makes indium phosphide lasers, then moved its headquarters to Upper Macungie from New Jersey. The reason for the relocation was two-fold: the cost-benefit of operating in the Lehigh Valley, and the deep local knowledge of fiber-optic components and chip packaging, CEO Mike Decelle said. "The Lehigh Valley was where laser technology was born," Decelle said in an interview earlier this month. Apogee manufactures its optical chips here and also operates a packaging and test facility. Its 50,000-square-foot facility is home to about 80 employees here; the company employs 90 people in total. The company does most of the packaging for its higher-end products here. The packaging -- specialty metal and ceramic containers that house chips -- are a critical part of the finished product the company sells to customers. Hiring experienced workers Another company, Infinera, has also tapped into the local knowledge of chip packaging. The Sunnyvale, Calif., optics company operates a packaging operation in Upper Macungie, where it employs about 40 people. The company makes optical networking systems that include highly integrated fiber-optic chips. Mike Reffle, general manager of Infinera's local facility, said the Lehigh Valley operation gives Infinera access to a group of people with anywhere from 10 years to 30 years of experience in fiber-optic components and packaging, gained largely at AT&T's Bell Labs. "I don't think you can find that level or depth of experience in terms of products everywhere," Reffle said. David Welch, Infinera's chief strategy officer, concurs. He said local employees have a formidable background in materials science, mechanical design and manufacturing processes. "They are some of the best in the world in terms of packaging optoelectronic components," Welch said in an interview last week. Infinera has distinguished itself in the optics field by creating what it calls a complete optical system to sell to telecommunications carriers, rather than components to equipment-makers. That means it makes not only the components that Apogee and CyOptics make, but also the larger equipment that the chips sit in once inside the network. In addition, Infinera has managed to pack 50 optical components onto a single chip. Welch said competitors typically place three or four components on a similar chip. The company recently announced it will provide its optical transport system to XO Communications, which is upgrading its 18,000-mile long-distance fiber-optic network. With 26 percent of the market, Infinera was the No. 1 supplier of what the industry calls 10 gigabit-per-second long-haul wavelengths last year. Local offices Other companies that have retained operations here include Lattice Semiconductor Corp., which bought its field programmable gate array chip division from Agere in 2002. The division produces a type of chip that customers can reprogram to add features as products evolve. The chips are used in cell phones, DVDs and automotive safety mechanisms. Lattice employs 80 people at its office in Hanover Township, Lehigh County. Chipmaker PMC-Sierra acquired AA Netcom in 2000 and has kept the company's original offices in South Whitehall Township. The office employs about 30 people, who design chips for large-scale computer storage systems. While employment is down from 85 workers in 2001, officials at the Santa Clara, Calif., company expressed commitment to Lehigh Valley office. "PMC-Sierra continues to invest in Allentown [area] product development because of that team's strong ability to innovate, execute and successfully compete in the global market," said Mark Stibitz, vice president and general manager of PMC-Sierra's Enterprise Storage Division, in an e-mail. Growing again The healthy tech employment locally, particularly in optics, is a stark contrast to the climate a few years back. The market for optical components saw an unprecedented spike in demand in the late 1990s during the dot-com boom. The surge of demand was followed by a drop that wiped out half the industry.Telecommunications companies overestimated the demand for high-speed Internet access and laid millions of miles of fiber-optic cable, most of which lie unused. As a result, many start-ups perished. Slowly, the market for fiber-optic components has been returning. Coringrato of CyOptics said telecommunications carriers are again extending their networks and making improvements. That means they need fiber-optic components and other equipment. Several of the companies with operations here have expanded in the last year or so. Infinera, for example, has doubled its employment since 2004, when it had about 20 workers here and 200 company-wide. It has already expanded its local space, and expects to add more employees as its strong sales continue. Conditions for tech companies have improved enough that Coringrato fears the employment situation could get tight not too far in the future. In the meantime, Marvell and fellow Agere competitor Broadcom have set their sights on scooping up local engineers. Both companies are taking advantage of recent layoffs at Agere that furloughed people with high-level knowledge of chips for hard-disk drives. Broadcom plans to hire about 10 engineers; Marvell said it could hire as many as 40 people for its office here. In the words of Agere, "This is the place to be!" [email protected] 610-820-6539 |