Apple will open its third research and development center in Israel.

The tech giant’s new center will open later this year in Raanana’s industrial zone, the Israeli business daily Globes reported, but no official date has been set.

Apple will bring aboard some 150 employees from Texas Instruments, whose Israel branch suffered major layoffs several weeks ago.

The website Next Web had reported that Intel was offering “healthy compensation packages” to lure engineers and nearly spoiled Apple’s plan to open the Raanana site.

Apple opened an R&D center last year in Haifa and also acquired the Herzliya-based flash memory developer Anobit. — jta