Taoglas opens North America’s first antenna and Radio Frequency design centre dedicated to the IoT market

Irish tech firm Taoglas is today cutting the ribbon on a US$2 million facility in San Diego, which will offer wireless device designers and manufacturers a fully equipped design and test location.

The Taoglas IoTx Centre is the first ever facility of its kind in North America for tech firms designing and building wireless devices for M2M and IoT applications.

The lab includes two, 3D anechoic test chambers, a team of antenna, radio frequency (RF) and mechanical engineers and all the equipment and tools to design, test and debug issues for market leading devices, many of which are on display in the facility itself. Taoglas works with its customers globally to ensure they get to market first time, on time and with successful products.

Taoglas, which is headquartered in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, was co-founded by local man, Dermot O’Shea, and Dubliner, Ronan Quinlan in 2004. It already employs 37 in Wexford and over 130 world-wide. It also has facilities and labs in Taiwan and Germany as well as Enniscorthy. Further investments and expansions are planned in Ireland and abroad where Taoglas expects to grow its workforce by a further 50%. Taoglas will also open facilities in France this year.

“From very early days, Taoglas has reinvested the majority of the profits back into the company, and it has paid off,” said Ronan Quinlan, Joint CEO and Co-founder of Taoglas. “Our enlarged San Diego facility reflects our growth rate last year of almost 100%. We work hard to support our customers worldwide who, not only need the off-the-shelf or custom antennas we offer, but also need design services and assistance. In Wexford, Taoglas’ headquarters houses research and development (R&D), finance, marketing and product management for Taoglas globally. It also has customer service, sales and engineering support for European customers.”

With existing facilities in Minneapolis and San Diego, the new test and design centre will support its North American customer base and will offer support for customers at all stages of their product design cycle – from concept to certification readiness, Dermot O’Shea explained.

“Preparation, planning, experience and the tools to test and debug issues are critical in first time success and Taoglas has founded the IoTx Center to get that all done quickly and effectively.

“This kind of open-door policy is rare in the antenna and wireless device testing business,” according to O’Shea, who is the president of Taoglas USA and has headed up operations in San Diego since 2009.

“We have expanded our engineering team, added more test equipment and now have two chambers here to increase design and test capacity. As well as being able to prototype antennas and printed circuit boards (PCB’s) etc we can test the antenna and devices in operation on site to ensure they work reliably in the real world.

“We have also now added an antenna and cable assembly operation so we can quickly produce antenna and custom radio frequency (RF) cable orders here in San Diego. Quite often customers require products in a few days rather than weeks and we have now facilitated that demand with this new move.”

For more information, please visit: http://www.taoglas.com