MediaTek Aims at World's No.2 With Aggressive R&D Staff Expansion

MediaTek Inc. plans to increase the number of its R&D staff to 11,500 worldwide this year from 2013's 9,500, aiming for the No.2 spot in the global handset-IC design industry from No.3 it snatched last year.

Qualcomm International Inc. leads currently while Broadcom Corp. is the No.2 in this field.

According to a MediaTek spokesperson, to keep up with the company's arch international competitors the company will launch the largest ever recruitment plan in 16 years of company history. The recruitment will take place simultaneously at the company's offices in the United States and Europe in addition to Taiwan headquarters, marking the company's determination to gain market share in Europe and the United States, where it will add 40% more personnel.

The spokesperson pointed out that MediaTek broke Qualcomm's dominance in supplying chips to handset makers LG and Sony last year due to steady increase in R&D investment to strengthen competitiveness.

On Feb. 1 this year, MediaTek brought onboard the 800-plus R&D engineers at handset-IC design unit of MStar Semiconductor Inc., which it has acquired. Including the 800-some staff and MStar's some 2,000 R&D specialists in TV IC and set-top box IC, MediaTek currently has over 9,500 R&D employees.

During the four-day run of the World Mobile Conference trade show, MediaTek debuted a new 64-bit system-on-chip codenamed MT6732, which comes with an integrated LTE (Long Term Evolution) modem. (KL)