Fabless fables and all that! Is India listening?

I received an interesting news alert from the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA), formerly, Fabless Semiconductor Association, which spoke about how fabless companies, only, were funded in July 2011. Well, it also led me to this feeling that each time there is any new electronics or related segment being talked about globally, it seems that the Indian semicon industry is slowly losing the plot! One surely hopes not!!

May I take your attention back to Pravin Desale's speech during Mentor Graphics' U2U conference of December 2009. He had cited some numbers during his speech, borrowing heavily from GSA. According to the GSA Dec. 2008 figures, distribution of fabless IC companies is: Canada 29, USA 606, Europe 151, Israel 61 and Asia 510 — China 222, Taiwan 196, Korea 47, Japan 16, Taiwan 16, Singapore 7, Malaysia 4, and India 2-28 (two fabless companies and 28 design services/IC providers).

Agreed that these numbers should have changed a bit, if not, a lot.

Now, when the India Semiconductor Association (ISA) was formed on Oct. 28, 2004, members at the BangaloreIT.com that November, dwelt upon the need for fabless companies.Somshankar Das, e4e, had said that for building fabless semiconductor companies in India, the country had a major advantage, as Indian talent was a large part of the global semiconductor industry. Some other advantages in favor of India at that time (Nov. 2004), were: local IC design service firms, who were creators of selective IP as well. Development of smart chips with embedded software was ongoing. Next, the US-funded cross border semiconductor firms were setting up development centers in India. Dr. Bobby Mitra, TI, had cited the need for microelectronics as the national agenda.

Well, where are we today? Why hasn't the fabless semiconductor industry grown in India? Just two months ago, I wrote on how, China's fabless market was set to double by 2015. Is any such movement even happening in India? At least, I am not aware, in case it were!

The establishment of fabless semiconductor companies is one good way to drive the growth of the semiconductor industry in India.

I still have the photograph of the founding members of the ISA, which is pasted above. The original participants were: Dr. Ananda, Dr. Madhu Atre, S. Uma Mahesh, Rajendra Khare, Dr. Sridhar Mitta, Dr. Anand Anandkumar, V. Veerappan, S. Janakiraman and Dr. Satya Gupta. Today, the ISA only has Dr. Satya Gupta as a representative. One hopes the others have not been left behind in the run of events following the ISA's formation!

By the way, why am I referring to the original ISA, and fabless companies? Perhaps, there is a very deep significance!