UCI to Receive Gift of Up to $10 Million From Tech Rivals

Top executives at Orange County’s two major high-tech rivals will announce a shared donation of $5 million to $10 million to boost the quality of UC Irvine’s engineering school, The Times learned Friday.

The gift from Dwight Decker, chairman of Conexant Systems Inc., and Henry Samueli, co-founder of Broadcom Corp., recognizes that the region’s economic future rests on the availability of highly skilled information technology workers.

The donation, to be announced June 19 at a UCI ceremony with Gov. Gray Davis, is aimed at improving the engineering faculty and increasing graduate-level opportunities for research in high-speed and wireless Internet communications, for which both companies make products.

Decker, who has headed Conexant since it was spun off from Rockwell International Corp. in January 1999, said in an interview last month that having a “world-class university nearby is absolutely critical” to the region’s growth.

He called for greater cooperation among companies in Orange County to address the region’s needs.

“We need a community of companies that shape our industry in order to make this area a magnet for talent,” he said last month. “I think we’re not a magnet for talent yet.”

Officials from both companies declined to elaborate on the gift or their plans for the new programs that will be developed at the school.

Jill Hamm, communications director for UCI’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering, acknowledged the gift. “We’re making that announcement on the 19th,” she said.

The gift also symbolizes the first effort by the two rivals to cooperate. As neighbors--Conexant in Newport Beach and Broadcom in Irvine--the corporations have become increasingly competitive for talent, recognition and prominence in the region.

Last month, they became direct competitors when Broadcom said it would enter the crowded fiber-optics market, where Conexant is an established player.

“I think it is very good to see them come together for a mutually beneficial cause, which is work-force development for the technology industry,” said Phil Beaudoin, executive director for the American Electronics Assn. of Orange County.

Samueli, for whom the school was named in December, has a history of major gifts to both UCI and UCLA, where he was a faculty member on leave when he founded Broadcom with one of his former students, Henry T. Nicholas III.