Future Technology Devices International (FTDI), the Glasgow developer of USB ICs, is looking for more people. The 60 employee company is looking for ten more employees including an IC designer, PCB designers and a technical support engineer.
The company has six IC designers but would like more. The company's founder and CEO, Fred Dart, says that he has ideas for new projects which he cannot implement without recruiting more people.
The company was set up in March 1992 and has revenues of around $20m. However it is experiencing 30 per cent per year growth and needs to expand its headcount to cope with demand.
FTDI has an R&D base in Singapore where it employs 16 people doing firmware and software development. The FTDI approach is to produce not only the silicon but all the software drivers and firmware on a royalty-free basis. 'We make USB easy' is the FTDI marketing message. The company uses three foundries, but does not reveal which ones.
Before founding FTDI, Dart, a former ASIC designers, founded Computer Design Concepts which did sub-contract ASIC design before moving into own-design ICs on the fabless semiconductor business model.
Initial products were chipsets for PC motherboards, and developed an 8-bit embedded CPU core PC peripherals which is used in FTDI's USB hub controller, the company's first USB IC.
When USB emerged, FTDI realized that the interconnection technology for many PC peripherals would change to USB and focused its efforts on developing devices and solutions for USB.
FTDI is privately owned by the Dart family and is about to move into new offices in Glasgow which are suitable for the company's planned expansion.
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