ISA Vision Summit 2009: Indian design influence, ideas to volume

This post is slightly delayed given the fact that I've been travelling! Here it is: Session 2 of Day 1, ISA Vision Summit 2009!!

The still quite young, Indian semiconductor industry has come a long way! Making his opening remarks during the session: Indian Design Influence, Ideas to Volume, Jaswinder Ahuja, Corporate Vice President & MD, Cadence Design Systems India, and chairman, pointed out that earlier, it used to be 'made by the world, FOR India.' However, globalization of design has now put India on the world semiconductor map. Today, it is 'made by the world, IN India.'

The picture here shows Ahuja making a point, while Freescale's Ganesh Guruswamy, TI's Dr. Bobby Mitra and Intel's Praveen Vishakantaiah are all attention.

The electronics systems production is clearly moving eastward. Even though the chip fabs may not happen in India, systems manufacturing is certainly happening. The emerging markets today offer a $5 trillion opportunity. However, the transformative challenge is: how to marry low cost, good quality, sustainability and profitability simultaneously!

Fantastic opportunity for investing in technology
Praveen Vishakantaiah, President, Intel, added that India has a fantastic opportunity ahead for investing in technology. He cited Intel's examples, such as: products designed in India for global market -- Intel Xeon 7400 processor; designed in India for India and emerging markets -- Classmate PC, which was prototyped in India; and designed in India and customized for the local market -- PoS retail kiosk solution.

Internal factors related to volume development include: unique market needs, designing for reliability, enabling customers -- standard globally but varied in India. External factors include: access to customers -- which can be challenging in a varied market such as India, access to employable talent, predictable supply chain, robust infrastructure -- digital infrastructure should scale simultaneously with design and development, and proactive policies and regulations.

According to Vishakantaiah, there is a need for a call to action and seize opportunities. This means, capitalizing on opportunities for local and global product designs, increase the impact and build end-to-end competencies, and to continue to move up the value chain. There is a need to address the internal factors. This would enable increasing the quality of products and extend local products into global markets. There is also a need to focus on the enabling the local market for global product companies.

As far as the external factors are concerned, there is a need to be proactive to remove barriers. There is a need to also encourage research, faculty development and new curriculum. India also needs to build energy efficient power, logistics and manufacturing capabilities, and also reduce e-waste and think green for all product designs.

Downturn creates huge opportunities
Ganesh Guruswamy, Director and Country Manager, Freescale Semiconductor India, remarked that even the deepest downturns can create huge opportunities for companies and countries. "Continuing to innovate during the downturn is important," he added. It is therefore, time for India to step up, put the right innovations in place and grow.

He stressed upon several custom solutions for emerging markets, such as two-wheelers, which dominate, e-bikes, which are said to be the future, LED lamps, power inverters, irrigation pumpset powered by solar, smart energy meters, and solar/PV base station and carrier based equipment for telecom.

Medical tourism is an emerging focus area for India, as it is growing by 30 percent each year. Medical tourism is likely to bring $1-2 billion to India by 2012. In this context, Guruswamy highlighted Freescale's ECG-on-a-chip solution. According to him, the way forward would involve moving away from a design mindset to a product mindset!

Don't be dwarfed by glamorous industries!
Dr Bobby Mitra, MD, Texas Instruments India, said that India is witnessing a change in its semiconductors agenda -- from R&D to R&D + market growth. If followed properly, it can become a game changing agenda. "India has nearly 2,000 OEMs designing electronics products. That's the untapped potential," he said.

Most of the customers are smaller companies -- the proverbial long tail. They know semiconductors and electronics very well. Such companies need to be measured by the firebrand innovation going on at those places.

Dr. Mitra said: "The products have to be the right kind of products. If they are complex, it is incidental." He cited defense and aerospace as very strong spaces, while industrial is also an equally strong opportunity area. "We should not be dwarfed by glamorous industries," he cautioned.

In the near term, the Indian semiconductor industry needs to develop two new stripes. These are: a high degree of customer centricity so it can be brought into the R&D engineer's minds, and have an application mindset -- India is very good in design work; it now needs to develop applications in the current context.

Dr. Mitra also called upon having research as an agenda for the industry. This can be done in areas that would assume importance in future. "By working with customers, we can make products more intelligent, by adding electronics and semiconductors," he advised. "All of us have a key role to play in this transformation."

SMEs, in particular, have a major role to play. Intel's Vishakantaiah said that MNCs would need to mentor and coach such companies. Freescale's Guruswamy added that MNCs can either help them grow or buy them out.

Dr. Mitra advised that even if customers didn't provide business, it would pay to remain close to them. He also referred to TI's Beagle Board, an open and low-cost platform, which enables development of applications. However, he advised the industry to be realistic about mass customization.