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Need for Indian semicon industry to think beyond embedded and design services
A friend recently called me a ‘maverick’ blogger! I wonder why! Nevertheless, let’s start off the new year with a topic that has been coming up for discussion time and again.
It is said: Indian industry should think beyond embedded and design services. What should those be? What is that extra or more that the Indian industry should do to grab the attention of overseas players? I had the pleasure of discussing this aspect with Jaswinder Ahuja, corporate vice president and managing director, Cadence Design Systems (I) Pvt. Ltd.
According to Jaswinder Ahuja, the Indian semiconductor industry has come a long way from the early eighties when a few companies set up centers to offshore non-critical design work to India.
“Today, India is a preferred destination for chip, board, embedded software design and development. Captive design centers and design services companies now own end-to-end design. Fabless companies and IP providers have also emerged, resulting in the gradual, steady rise of India’s semiconductor ecosystem. India now needs to move to the next level i.e., become the next innovation hub for experimenting and launching new products,” he said.
The mobile phone revolution in India has taught us that India is a very large, viable and profitable market if all elements of the ecosystem align and there is appropriate innovation at the technology and business level.
The Indian market has some unique characteristics and provides Indian entrepreneurs a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to innovate, create and capture value by building products and solutions for the local market, which can then be extended to global emerging and developed markets.
He added that Indian companies also need to get comfortable with collaborating across the value chain within India and globally. “Sectors like energy, healthcare, communications and education hold immense potential and we are already starting to see early signs of Indian companies innovating for the Indian market.”
All of this does make a lot of sense!
The second part of this discussion will look at the top semicon/EDA trends to watch out for in 2010.
Embedded systems seminar focuses on India’s embedded might
This fourth seminar on embedded systems, organized recently in Bangalore by EDN Asia, Singapore, Reed Business, was further testament to India’s already proven embedded might.
Welcoming the delegates, Kirtimaya Varma, editor-in-chief, EDN Asia, noted that Bangalore continues to be a city of overwhelming importance for EDN Asia. “We believe that this city is well on its way of evolving from the electronics design hub of India to the electronics design hub of the world. We always look forward to this seminar as an opportunity for us to interact with the local design industry in India.
“Notwithstanding the severe recession, ISA-IDC estimates that the embedded software revenue is poised to grow from about $6 billion in 2008 to $7.3 billion in 2009. While most industrial segments are laying off staff, the embedded software workforce is projected to rise from about 126,000 in 2008 to 150,000 in 2009. These figures show the inherent strength of the embedded design industry in India.
“However, most of the embedded software activities in India are at the lower end of the value chain. But for the last few years large Indian companies are moving towards the higher end activities in specific domains. This is expected to expand the embedded software market. Besides, the growing consumer and automotive markets and increased expenditures in telecom and defense will also contribute towards the growth of embedded in the coming years.”
There were a series of presentations, led by V.R.Venkatesh, senior VP, head of product engineering services, Wipro Technologies. The other tracks were:
* Debug embedded systems with industry’s most advanced Mixed Signal Scopes (MSO) — Venkat Prasad, Agilent Technologies
* Small yet Highly Functional – Keeping Your System Cost Low with Embedded ICs — Lou Kai Chee, Fujitsu Microelectronics Asia Pte Ltd
* Highest Quality MCU Portfolio Drives your Ideas to Business — Ravi Kishore Ivaturi, Infineon Technologies
* Introducing nanoWatt XLP MCUs for eXtreme Low Power — Kanad S. Joshi, Microchip Technology Inc.
* Low Power Flash FPGA Technologies — Jijeesh M, Actel Corp.
* Embedded Processing with Xilinx — Akshat Jain, Xilinx
Having represented EDN Asia for quite a number of years in the past, I was extremely pleased to be part of this show. Another reason, Kirti Varma of EDN Asia and yours truly — our association goes back a really long time — starting from 1991 at Electronics For You, New Delhi, through to Global Sources and later, Reed Business!
I hope to add more information on some of the tracks, time permitting!