Cadence to close Scottish design services, say reports

Cadence relocated its Scottish operation from Edinburgh to Livingston in the late 1990s under a government backed plan called Project Alba that was intended to create a design services center of excellence that would employ up to 1900 chip design engineers. Cadence was forced to cut back those plans during the 2001 to 2003 downturn.

According to a report in The Herald Cadence has confirmed that it has entered into a 30-day consultation period from April 10 with its design services staff in Livingston and that a "significant number" of the 90 staff are likely to lose their jobs.

"We made a strategic decision two years ago to focus on our software products, which design and develop integrated circuits for semiconductor makers and others," the report quoted Tim Barnes, vice-president for marketing at Cadence Europe, as saying. "As part of this strategy, we must balance our design-service capabilities as makes sense. Our core business is software," he was also quoted saying

Cadence is expected to retain about 25 R&D personnel and 12 support staff in Livingston.