News

ON Semi Opens Upgraded Development Center in Bratislava

October 11, 2017 by Paul Shepard

ON Semiconductor announced the opening of its new, significantly larger product development center in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava. The company has, as a consequence, underlined its strong commitment to supporting ongoing technological advance within the automotive sector.

Working closely with car manufacturers’ tier 1 suppliers, this center’s highly-trained engineering workforce will remain heavily involved in the design, layout, validation and testing of next generation power management integrated circuits (ICs).

ON Semiconductor’s investment into Bratislava began 17 years ago, when the company embarked on research activities in conjunction with the Slovak University of Technology. The initial small scale research and development center that was located there grew rapidly, and by 2006 it had to be moved to new premises outside the university campus.

Over time it has progressed from just a handful of people to a total staff of 45, nearly all of whom are engineers.

As the scope of the activities undertaken and the number of employees have continued to increase, the development center has now reached a stage where it needs, once again, to relocate - this time to a significantly bigger purpose-built facility.

The new site presents the engineering staff with an optimized workspace, allowing more creative and efficient new product development. It also offers ample provision for further expansion in the future.

The feature-rich, state-of-the-art products that the engineers at the Bratislava Development Center are responsible for designing are incorporated into the powertrains of electric vehicles (EVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and conventional combustion engine cars in order to enable fuel economy and safety levels to be raised.

Moreover, ICs developed here can be utilized in a broad range of automotive applications where their functionality improves comfort for vehicle occupants or contributes to enhancing the overall driving experience.

ON Semiconductor’s Bratislava site mainly comprises graduates from the Slovak University of Technology, as well as from Zilina University and other high profile academic institutions in the vicinity. The quality of the engineers that the company has been able to recruit locally is an essential element of the development center’s long term success.

Keith Jackson

“Over the course of many years, the Bratislava team have proved themselves to be a vital part of our automotive business, providing invaluable application knowledge, unmatched validation capabilities and game-changing intellectual property,” states Keith Jackson, CEO of ON Semiconductor.

“Through locating a development center there it has been possible to capitalize on the strong engineering expertise that is found in this region and also its longstanding culture of automotive ingenuity. With this additional investment, the new design center will be pivotal in building momentum around our ever widening automotive portfolio,” Jackson concluded.