Richtek: from Brabant to Europe, step by step

In order to ship 100,000 IC’s (Integrated Circuits), also known as microchips, you don’t need much more than a medium-sized cardboard box. And so transport was not an issue when it came to the Taiwanese company Richtek’s decision to establish itself in Brabant. But what was an issue was the proximity of the High Tech Campus Eindhoven, which is the place to be when it comes to accessing the European market, step by step.

Richtek launched in Taiwan in 1998 and has not stopped growing rapidly since that time. The company is amongst the top Asian semiconductor manufacturers with branches in China, Korea, Japan and Silicon Valley in the US. It employs 550 people around the globe and has an annual turnover of >200 million US dollars. Per annum production of microchips is in the region of two billion.

‘Your Power Partner’ is the slogan under which Richtek operates. And the power the company today represents is evident from its impressive list of customers: Dell, Fujitsu, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, TomTom and many other international brands working in automation, wireless solutions and other fields.

Most of Richtek’s customers are located in Asia and its market share in Europe is still very limited. This was the underlying reason for the Taiwan company to establish itself more firmly in this corner of the globe. “For us, Europe has always been a reasonably closed market,” explains Richtek Europe managing Director Rich Tseng. “The only way to access the market is to be in it.”

When looking for a place to establish itself in Europe, Richtek quickly settled on Eindhoven. Rich Tseng had worked here previously for Philips and NXP. “So I already knew the High Tech Campus and knew immediately ‘that’s the place to establish Richtek’. The environment suits us perfectly. I saw the BETA Business Center go up, and it is an excellent location for a company seeking a flexible working environment.” The location aside, Richtek also had other reasons for selecting the Netherlands. “It is a pre-eminent European country. They also speak excellent English, especially in the high-tech region here in Eindhoven, where it is teeming with international activity.”

Richtek opened its doors in Eindhoven in 2007, and its public profile grew rapidly on the continent. “This is about a long-term investment,” Rich Tseng explains. “And naturally also about commitment to your European prospects.” The day that the first engineers from Taiwan will start work here and the company launches European production is fast approaching and, once that step is taken, there will be a fully-fledged Richtek R&D Centre in Eindhoven.