The facility’s closure will eliminate a major manufacturer from the Cambridge tax rolls.
(Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff File 2003)
Analog to close Cambridge site next month
Chipmaker’s move will cost 120 jobs in ‘brutal downturn’
The facility’s closure will eliminate a major manufacturer from the Cambridge tax rolls.
(Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff File 2003)
Chipmaker Analog Devices Inc. of Norwood will shut down its Cambridge manufacturing facility next month, at a cost of 120 jobs.
Spokeswoman Maria Tagliaferro said the job cuts were the result of a previously announced plan to consolidate production at Analog’s Wilmington plant.
“We have set job preservation as a key priority in all our decision-making through this brutal economic downturn,’’ Tagliaferro said. “Yet it has been unavoidable in some cases.’’
Analog Devices is a major producer of specialized chips that convert sound or vibration into digital data and that are found in a variety of motion-sensitive devices, such as automobile airbags and the handheld controller for the popular Nintendo Wii videogame console. The micro-electrical-mechanical sensors, or MEMS chips, use the motions of tiny silicon “fingers’’ to detect sounds or movements. In automobile airbag systems, the chips detect the shock of a collision and deploy the bag.
Analog Devices has also developed a MEMS chip for use as a microphone in low-cost electronic devices such as cellphones.
Tagliaferro said the job cuts have been planned since November, when the company decided to move production to Wilmington. But since then, the recession’s impact on demand for the chips has become more severe. For instance, poor auto sales have reduced demand for chips for air bags.
In February, Analog Devices decided to accelerate the closure of the Cambridge plant and took a $22 million charge against earnings to cover the cost.
The company “has not been immune to the overall downturn in the semiconductor business,’’ Tagliaferro said, but she added that Analog Devices’ MEMS business is in good shape. “Generally speaking, it’s a growing emerging market,’’ she said.
The closure will eliminate a major manufacturer from the Cambridge tax rolls, but Susan Glazer, the city’s deputy director for community development, said it won’t cause major problems. “It’s one company out of many that we have in the city,’’ she said. “I’m sure there will be an impact, but I wouldn’t say it’s significant.’’ Glazer said that despite the recession, electronics and biotechnology companies have continued to expand operations in Cambridge.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com. 
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