What should India do to boost semiconductors?

I’ve already written a lot on the Indian semiconductor industry. Now, there’s nothing new to say. Even then, I am literally coaxed to say what I think the Indian semiconductor industry should do! As though the industry will listen to a nobody like me! 

First, the industry should stop wasting time running here and there, and focus on getting the job done! Semiconductors isn’t a new area, and has been in existence even before the India Semiconductor Association (ISA) came into being in 2005.

There have been talks (ongoing since about 2006) about building fabs in India. Well, where are they? Back in 2010, I wrote a post titled Indian industry proposes to extend deadline of India’s semicon policy up to March 2015! One sincerely hopes that has actually happened!

India could consider building 150/180/200mm fabs that tackle local problems via indigenous applications. And, there are scores of local issues that need to be dealt with! I’ve said before, and am repeating myself at the sake of repetition — the semiconductor industry is NOT the IT industry, but it appears to being treated like one, especially in India!

Indian companies could consider developing firms in the assembly testing, verification and packaging (ATMP) space. Very little has happened so far and a lot more needs to be done. There could be some attempts to attract and invite companies in areas such as RFID to address local problems and develop local applications, unless India has given up on RFIDs.

I really have very little idea whether there is any interest in India to pursue global companies in PDP, OLED/LED space for setting up manufacturing units. Although, I can safely bet that if it is the Chinese companies that Indian firms are setting themselves up to take on, we would have a very long way to go!

India also needs to kindly forget about the ‘states race’! It has not helped anyone so far, nor will it help anyone in future!! In the end, we are all looking to develop India, aren’t we?

I didn’t even know that there is so much time required for setting up a pan-industry panel that will determine the top five products that are important for India! Seriously!! Anyone, who resides in India, should be able to tell you that the key sectors in India are automotive, consumer, industrial, medical and telecom. Agree that automotive and certain medical electronics areas can be expensive. Well, there are still three areas to pursue!

If anyone had simply bothered to send me an email or even call me, I’d have very happily told them about the top five product lines that are important for India and much more!   There is a pressing need to develop a robust Indian semiconductor industry, led by local companies! Many would agree that all of this seems very easy to say, but difficult to manage! 

Indian ESDM industry likely to grow 9.9 percent CAGR in 2011-15

The India Semiconductor Association (ISA), along with Frost and Sullivan, released the 6th ISA-F&S Report on the India ESDM Market (2011-2015). Evidently, the focus is on electronics and semiconductors industries in India.

Only a few economies have exhibited the strength to weather the harsh conditions prevailing in the global environment. Such economies are especially remarkable since they are vulnerable to headwinds given the significant size of their GDP. India, despite its temporary slowdown in the last year, has not only withstood the adverse environment, but has also been witnessing green shoots of recovery.

The Electronics Systems Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) sector ranks high among the various segments that have contributed to creating this bulwark. The ESDM industry in India has continued to chart its journey northwards. While the industry may not have achieved the exponential growth forecast by experts, its performance in the last few years can be termed an achievement in view of the overall slowdown of the Indian economy.

Source: ISA, India.

The ESDM industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.9 percent between 2011 and 2015 resulting in an industry size of $94.2 billion by 2015. Although the electronics product market is growing a very fast pace, ironically most of the demand is being fulfilled by imports. The growth potential of the services component will be determined to a great extent by India’s ability to undertake higher value-add activities and cost competiveness.

Resolute focus on the ESDM industry and favorable policies to incentivize investment, adoption of new technologies, catalyzing innovation and entrepreneurship, enhancement of skills and addressing the disability cost of developing ESDM products domestically are the key ingredients to elevating India to a leading player in the global arena.

Key drivers and challenges for Indian ESDM industry
The positive factors far outweigh the challenges that impact the Indian ESDM industry. The growth of the product markets is one of the key drivers where mobile devices, consumer electronics and IT/OA products continue to script some of the high growth rates globally.

Financial inclusion programs and rising standards of living have generated demand for new products besides increasing customer-base of existing ones. India is also recognized globally as a key source of high technology skills which are leveraged by global corporations for generating value.

The global economic downturn has had a profound impact on the ESDM industry in the past quarters. This is expected to be temporary, and given the strong domestic growth potential, is expected to be overcome over the next two quarters. Our continuing reliance on imports is impeding growth of domestic manufacturing, which in turn is a major hurdle to the creation of a viable domestic ecosystem. The high cost of developing products including duties, taxation, capital and infrastructure are leading to a slow pace of investment in this sector.

In a developing economy like India, where the government is driving force through its role of policy maker and facilitator, new and evolving policies for ESDM are anticipated to spur the industry into a higher growth mode. The recognition of the ESDM industry as a key contributor to the GDP is a major step forward. The national policies on telecom and electronics have the potential to bring about a major change in the domestic industry. Quick implementation of these policy initiatives will positively impact the development of the domestic product design and manufacturing industry.

The ESDM industry in India comprises of the following four key segments:

1. Electronic Products.
2. Electronic Components.
3. Semiconductor Design Services.
4. Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS).

The first two represents products, while the others highlight the manufacturing services and design services.

Ph.D candidates in VLSI industry! Is enough being done?

“Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.” – John Ruskin.

“Great men’s honor ought always to be measured by the methods they made use of in attaining it.” – François Duc De La Rochefoucauld.

The 26th International Conference on VLSI Design 2013 is starting tomorrow at Hyatt Regency, Pune. Over the years, it has served as a forum for VLSI folks to discuss topics related to VLSI design, EDA, embedded systems, etc. The theme for the VLSI and embedded systems conference is green technology.

That brings me to a point raised by one reader of this blog- what’s the future of  Ph.D candidates in the VLSI industry! First, do not believe when you are told that you can only join academics in case you are a Ph.D. You can certainly switch over to R&D at the various VLSI companies! Or, you can start on your own, by developing something noteworthy!!

As for the current scenario, especially in India, students, or well, Ph.D holders should seriously consider developing useful projects for  use in India, and globally. It seems all too very easy for folks to join some large MNC in India or overseas, as according to such people: their jobs are done!

For some strange reason, semiconductor/VLSI development seems to have remained in the backburner in India! I was surprised on visiting a center in Bangalore to find students – actually, some Ph.D. holders – working on projects that may never even see the light of the day! That leads to the question: are the tutors guiding them enough? Do we even have systems in place that backs development?

Having spent a long time in the Far East, I have seen young Chinese and Taiwanese, Korean and Japanese men and women take to VLSI earnestly. How did they manage to do that? Mainly, by starting their own companies and developing some product!

Now, this is something not yet evident in India! Has anyone else asked this question? And, can the Indian VLSI community make this happen? It should not be very difficult, if the head, hand and heart are there in the deed!

As John Ruskin says, “Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.”

François Duc De La Rochefoucauld. says, “Great men’s honor ought always to be measured by the methods they made use of in attaining it.”

Hope these words make sense! Developing and designing solutions is a fine art where the hand, the head and the heart must be in sync. And, if you have really developed a solution or a product, what were the methods you used to attain that! Answering these two questions are tough, but the answers really lie within us!

My question remains: do students (in India) really spend time for developing projects, or do they simply copy or buy projects?

Coming back to the VLSI conference, this year’s program will play host to the 4th IEEE International Workshop on Reliability Aware System Design and Test (RASDAT) as well. There will be discussions around topics such as design-for-test, fault-tolerant micro architecture, low power test, reliability of CMOS circuits, design for reliability, dependability and verifiability, etc.

A semiconductor company will likely be introducing a portable and affordable analog design kit. Students will no longer be required to go to expensive labs for developing projects. There should be lot of simulation tools, online course materials, community support, lab materials, etc. to use using the analog design kit. There should be a string of announcements too, so let’s wait for the event to start!

Yet another electronics policy for India?

India has once again announced an Electronics Policy, and frankly, I’ve lost count, how many times! Nevertheless, one hopes that this policy somehow takes off, and helps India get off the ground!  There are certain points in the policy that are worth a relook.

One, the setting up of electronic manufacturing clusters. This has been time and again stressed and re-stressed. Will it come around, this time? Let’s wait and watch, if it happens this time!

Two, as per the policy, there is a proposal for setting up two semiconductor wafer manufacturing fabrication facilities. Where? As far as one knows, there is hardly any infrastructure around to support even one semicon fab! Some people may say, Bangalore, but well, they are welcome to say that! As for people buying more of ‘domestically manufactured electronic goods’, it remains to be seen!

Three, back in 2007, when the SIPS program was announced, there were great expectations! If you recall some time ago, I mentioned that the Indian semiconductor policy, announced back in 2007, had supposedly expired on March 31, 2010! Then, the Indian industry came up with recommendations that included extending the Indian semicon policy up to March 2015! So, what happens to that? Or, is it dead and buried?

Four, back in 2007, the ‘ecosystem units’ were clearly defined as units, other than a fab unit, for manufacture of semiconductors, displays including LCDs, OLEDs, PDPs, any other emerging displays; storage devices; solar cells; photovoltaics; other advanced micro and nanotechnology products; and assembly and test of all the above products. What’s happening now?

Five, does all of this mean that the role of India-based semiconductor companies as a percentage of the semiconductor market globally, will improve? Or, do we take India as a system/gadget maker and thus, as a percentage of that market??

Six, fabrication is increasingly expensive, much involved and the actual global fabrication players are declining and will be about three to four companies. There is talk of 450mm fabs across the world! Have we even heard a word from India?

Okay, so let’s say, India will have two fabs? By when? What process technology? If it is a 450mm fab, India can very well kiss goodbye to this decade, at least. And, India continues to slip back in having a ((proper) fab!

Top 10 semiconductor growth drivers: Intersil

David Bell, president, CEO and director, Intersil Corp.

Intersil is a strong company with long heritage, according to David Bell, president, CEO and director, Intersil Corp. It is currently building intelligent, innovative leadership products, and targeting fast growing markets. India is key to Intersil’s success. He was speaking on the occasion of Intersil announcing expansion plans in India.

The company is a leader in high perfornance analog and mixed-signal ICs, and has 35 global locations, including 17 design centers, and had a revenue of $761 million in 2011. It offers a broad range of analog and mixed-signal products for power management, analog and mixed-signal and consumer products.

Intersil’s ‘asset-lite’ manufacturing benefits include access to advanced technologies, speciallized technologies that are retained in-house, flexible capacity and reduced risk. It is developing more integrated and intelligent products that simplify customers’ design process.

Top 10 growth drivers
According to Bell, the top 10 growth drivers today are: active cables, audio, automotive, dense power conversion, digital power management, digital power modules, PC power management, pico projectors, optical sensors and security surveillance.

Round-up 2011: Best of semiconductors

Right folks! This is the last post for 2011!! Here’s a look at the good, bad and ugly, that the year had to offer in semiconductors. Enjoy! Happy new year, everyone!

Dec. 2011
Round-up 2011: Best of semiconductors

Video and mobility drivers for global semicon in 2012

Future materials and devices for power electronics

SuVolta solving power problem in SoCs across multiple CMOS process nodes

Global semiconductor industry keeps consolidating; 28nm will be stable: Dr. Wally Rhines

Synopsys acquires Magma! And, another one bites the dust!!

Nov. 2011
Lattice intros low power ECP4 FPGAs

Global semicon sales forecast at $329.4 billion for 2012! – What about this one? A well-read piece!

MEMS Executive Congress 2011 round-up

Global semiconductor market will be $313 billion in 2012: SSIA – It seems 2012 will pan out this way!

MEMS market overview: IHS iSuppli

NXP licenses Broadcom’s BroadR-Reach Ethernet technology for in-vehicle networking

MEMS devices driving healthcare apps!

Updated global semicon sales forecast 2011′s estimate falls $2.74 billion

Oct. 2011
DIT outlines initiatives to promote ESDM in India

Game changers: New paradigms for future of electronic product realization

Designing systems to thrive in disruptive trends!

Realizing EDA360: Charlie Huang, Cadence – Focus on EDA360!

What’s happening with ISA and Indian semicon industry? – Defining piece!

Altera launches SoC FPGAs

Emerging piezoMEMS apps and ion beam etch solutions for next gen MEMS and sensors

ESDM all over again? When will Indian semicon and electronics industries learn??

Semiconductor supply chain dynamics: Future Horizons @ IEF2011

Sep. 2011
India has restricted itself to only semicon design and R&D!

ST launches STM32 F4 series of MCUs

ARM connecting the world!

Renesas enhancing localization of products in India!

Magma announces Silicon One strategy

Need to work toward sustainable future: imec

Aug. 2011
Freescale launches first ‘base-station-on-chip’ products!

Semicon industry at inflection point of innovation: Rich Beyer

NXP launches CAN partial networking solution for automotives

Fabless fables and all that! Is India listening?

What’s happening with global semicon industry?

2011 global semicon sales growth likely to trend downward for rest of year?

What’s happening with ISA and Indian semicon industry?

What? The India Semiconductor Association (ISA) only has around 25 Indian companies in its list? This startling piece of statistic was recently conveyed to me by a company looking to enter India! I frantically contacted ISA to clarify. As of now, am yet to get a reply.

I look around, especially across Asia. There are so many local companies listed in China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan, but the number drops drastically, when it comes to India!

Having spent a number of years in Asia Pacific and being more familiar with its ways definitely helps. Why, I remember meeting TSMC, back in 1998, in Taiwan. It was considered a small entity, with few takers. Where has it risen today?

Even Huawei, for example, showed off its 3G base stations, while still a young Chinese company, to me in 2000. I recall asking Richard Lee, then with Huawei, what’s the company’s expansion plans. Today, everyone knows how fast and wide Huawei has expanded!

Now, when you compare two of the biggest players today – TSMC and Huawei — with Indian players, who do you come up with? Nothing?? Some may say, AirTel and Reliance? Excuse me, but aren’t they telecom operators?

ISA founder members in Oct. 2004!

Now, I do know of several start-ups in the Indian semiconductor space, who have time and again given a negative response when asked the question: Are you an ISA member? The single biggest and telling response has been: “ISA caters to global companies or MNCs. What does it do or has done for the Indian companies? We are fine without its support!”

Wow! If this is the response that the Indian semiconductor start-ups have toward the industry association, I wonder what lies ahead!

When the ISA had started off in Oct. 2004, things weren’t this way! Going back to that year, India was said to have a major advantage in building fabless semiconductor companies. Some other advantages in favor of India at that time (Nov. 2004), were: local IC design service firms, who were creators of selective IP, development of smart chips with embedded software and the need for microelectronics as national agenda. Today, all of that seems to have been lost! Why? These are not even discussed?

And now, the ISA has latched on to ESDM (electronics system design and manufacturing). That’s really ‘easy to say, but difficult to manage!’ Going by the current happenings, one does not feel even this can happen! One wishes, it eventually does.

But hey, this post is not about ESDM! It is about having the number of Indian-born-and-bred semiconductor companies within the ISA!  Take a good look at the image! Only one member of the Executive Council is currently present! Where are all the founders of ISA? Or, do you now want to tell me that the Indian industry does not even respect its founding fathers?

The ISA is committed to including all players of the ESDM ecosystem within it’s member base. As such, any company which plays in this ecosystem, irrespective of their country of origin, is welcome to join the ISA. Having said that, the ISA is particularly partial to getting more companies registered within India, and who are doing both R&D and development within India, to join it’s membership base. We are also very supportive of startups in this space and are very proud of the startups who are already members, said PVG Menon, president, ISA.

Renesas Mobile inaugurates R&D centre in Bangalore

Renesas Mobile Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Renesas Electronics Corp., announced the inauguration of its research and development (R&D) centre in Bangalore, India which develops 2G, 3G and 4G modem technologies.

(L-R): Heikki Tenhunen, senior VP, Alan Frederiksen, MD, Renesas Mobile India, Shinichi Yoshioka, senior executive VP and COO, and Jean-Marie Rolland, CTO and executive VP, Sales and Marketing.

Renesas Mobile was established on December 1, 2010 as a 100 percent subsidiary company of Renesas Electronics. As part of the Renesas group, it has the support of the world’s largest embedded microcontroller player in the semiconductor world. Renesas Mobile focuses on platforms for smart phones, feature phones, car infotainment and embedded connected devices enabling people to stay connected in the cloud computing era.

The company integrates the former Mobile Multimedia Business Unit of Renesas with the former Nokia Wireless Modem Business Unit. The Nokia Wireless Modem Business Unit has been acquired by Renesas Electronics as announced on July 1st, 2010.

Introducing Renesas Mobile Corp., Heikki Tenhunen, senior VP, said that Renesas Mobile offers advanced and innovative products and services for mobile phones, car infotainment solutions, consumer electronics and industrial applications.

The company’s mission is to develop, productize and deliver advanced triple- and dual-mode communication centric semicon chipsets and platforms based on chipsets to provide innovative solutions and drive mew oppurtunities for customers. Renesas Mobile aims to be a world leader in mobile platforms by evolving its proven modem, application processor and SoCs, and associated services via its global business channel.

The Renesas-Nokia combine has since gone on to make unrivalled connected experiences a reality — by way of powerful multi-tasking, rich multimedia, newly emerging technologies — such as cloud computing, 3D, augmented reality, etc., PC like Internet experience, smaller form factor and longer battery life, and remain always connected!

Renesas’ mobile expertise includes the following:
* Excellent device experience, supporting over 400 mobile handsets to date;
* Key components verified at ‘system‘ level quality for platform release;
* Complete reference design easy to start application development;
* Market proven multimedia software package and multiple OpenOS integration support;
* Competitive SoC implementation performance; over 470 mn transistors in mobile LSI (G4);
* Leading-edge process (45nm, 28nm, 22nm) balancing own fab and partners (TSMC, etc.).

Indian semicon market update shows 28.3 percent growth in 2010!

I am a bit amused to read the latest key findings on the Indian semiconductor market from ISA-Frost & Sullivan. Never mind!

Source: ISA-Frost

The report concludes that products demonstrating potential for explosive growth include –mobile devices, telecom base stations, LCD TV, STB, EMS, CFL, LED lights and smart cards and products with low MI – notebooks, tablets, STBs routers, digital cameras, etc. need to be given preferential treatment for indigenous manufacturing.

India is becoming the hub for small car manufacturing. Incentives and encouragement need to be provided for enhancing automotive component manufacturing in the country to keep pace with automobile industry growth.

Products enabling energy efficiency need to be incentivized through tax breaks for R&D and product development thereby promoting indigenous manufacturing. Electronics and semiconductor MI stagnate at 50 percent;  the TAM growth is unlikely to match the TM growth in the near future! Continuing status quo — the electronics import bill to surpass crude import bill by 2020-21.

The need of the hour is a focused mission for local electronics manufacturing promotion. A National Electronics Development Plan is also required. As is required an electronics policy for ecosystem development; subsidies for manufacturing; funds for R&D; extended tax breaks; hardware development parks.

Otherwise, the report suggests that India’s semiconductor market grew by a phenomenal 28.3 percent in 2010.

Indian semicon market: Source: ISA-Frost

The global semiconductor market’s cyclical trends has minimal impact on India. Mobile devices, telecom and IT/ OA contributed 82 percent to semiconductor TM in 2010.

Local manufacturing of telecom equipment by OEMs and EMS companies to propel related semiconductor consumption by a massive 50 percent during 2010 to 2012. Influenced by regulatory norms and sharpening competition, automotive segment to account for the highest growth in semiconductor demand at 31 percent from 2010 to 2012.

Sustained gulf between the semiconductor TM and TAM from 2010-2012 highlight the urgency to promote local manufacturing to drive higher growth in TAM.

The Total Semiconductor Market (TM) revenues are poised to grow from $6.55 billion in 2010to $9.86 billion in 2012. The market is expected to witness a CAGR of 22.7 percent.

During the corresponding period, the Total Semiconductor Available Market (TAM) revenues are expected to grow at a CAGR of 22.3 percent reaching revenues of $4.71 billion in 2012from $3.14 billion in 2010. Mobile devices and telecom are the key contributors to TAM while mobile devices and IT/ OA are the key contributors to TM.

Being an indispensable component in a wide range of products, the memory market leads the contribution to semiconductor revenues with 23.4 percent and 20.1 percent of TM and TAM, respectively.

One hopes that all of this is indeed correct, and the Indian semiconductor industry continues to grow in future!

‘Long wait’ for Indian semiconductor industry?

I still don’t quite understand the submission made by the IT Taskforce on recommendations for the Indian hardware and electronics manufacturing! The first proposal was submitted by this Taskforce, back in Nov. 2009! Now, a leading daily comes out with a report about a new prescription to boost electronics manufacturing. What is all this?

By itself, isn’t this a ‘long wait’ for the Indian semiconductor and electronics industries?

I repeat: Have we really done enough, even in  the past, to even boost electronics hardware manufacturing in the country? If yes, then where are the mini Hsinchus and Shenzhens within India? N. Vittal had said something similar (such as developing mini Hong Kongs and Singapores) some years ago, but that seems ages ago, now!

Back in April 2010, I had written a post titled: Did you know that the Indian semicon policy had expired and now requires an extension? The next thing one heard was in July 2010: Indian industry proposes to extend deadline of India’s semicon policy up to March 2015!

What is really happening with the Indian semiconductor industry? First up, the semiconductor indusrty is NOT the IT industry. However, it appears that it is being treated like one!

Did anyone really look into the reason why fabs never happened in round 1 of the SIPS? Perhaps, not! I had asked a question, back in Feb. 2009: The Indian silicon wafer fab story seems dead and buried. Should we revive it?

Lest I be repetitive, and boring, I had suggested a 10-point program for the Karnataka semicon policy — in another blog post — on June 29, 2008. The points were:

1. A long-term semiconductor policy running 20-25 years or so.
2. Core team of top Indian leaders from Indian firms and MNCs, as well as technology institutes in Karnataka to oversee policy implementation.
3. Incentives such as government support, including stake in investments, and tax holidays.
4. Strong infrastructure availability and management.
5. Focus on having solar/PV fabs in the state.
6. Consider having 150/180/200mm fabs that tackle local problems via indigenous applications.
7. Develop companies in the assembly testing, verification and packaging (ATMP) space.
8. Attract companies in fields such as RFID, to address local problems and develop local applications.
9. Pursue companies in PDP, OLED/LED space to set up manufacturing units.
10. Promote and set up more fabless units.

All that one needs to do is to simply extend this all across India, rather than waste time in devising policies that have either expired, or well, take ages to see the light of the day! We should also refrain from discussing wafer fabs for now, and focus on fabless. Although, if we do attract and develop a local fab, that would be great for India!

Wonder, whether anyone in India is even listening!