ISA Vision Summit 2010: UK intends to be part of India’s growing electronics market

The UK is a country partner with the India Semiconductor Association (ISA) at the ongoing ISA Vision Summit 2010 for the second successive year. Delivering his address during the inaugural function, Richard Hyde, British deputy high commissioner, said: “The UK is partnering this event because we want to be part of the growing electronics market in India. We see the changing ICT landscape. We see the move from low end outsourced services to high value business, driven by innovation.”Richard Hyde, British deputy high commissioner, delivering his address at ISA Vision Summit 2010 in Bangalore, India.

He added: “We have an ongoing and long-term commitment to working with the Indian semiconductor industry. We want to promote growth through partnerships with UK innovation and excellence. The UK and Indian semiconductor industries working together have enormous potential to create a powerful solution for customers in India, the UK and the rest of the world.”

The UK electronics industry is about £25 billion a year. It is made up of more than 11,500 companies employing about 250,000 people. UK is the acknowledged leader in independent systems design with over 40 percent market share.

Hyde presented some examples of UK’s innovative industry, such as CamSemi — a spinoff from Cambridge University, which provides power conversion solutions to make electronics industry ‘greener’; DisplayLink — a pioneer in connecting multiple screens to one PC through USB; and PicoChip — experts in wireless infrastructure and signal processing. Several of UK’s semiconductor companies also have strong presence in Bangalore, India, such as ARM, CSR and Wolfsen.

He said that the UK has a vibrant start-up community that supports strong industry clusters in the South West of England, Central Scotland and Cambridge. Experts from these regions are present at the ISA Vision Summit for discussions.

Hyde added that the UK’s consumer electronics market is the strongest in Europe. Sales of flat panel and LCD TVs hit £8.8 million in 2008. Despite the downturn, there has been further growth in 2009. Blue ray players and HD based technology have continued to grow, and that is important as this technology was developed in the UK. The UK also remains Europe’s largest ICT market with sales of £171 billion per annum with over £20 billion in equipment sales.

Hyde touched upon the SemiConclave workshop organized by the Science and Invvovation Network within the Deputy High Commission team and the ISA in October 2008. One of the outcomes of the event has been that the Bangalore based Center for Emerging Technologies at the Jain University is now working with the Scottish Microelectronics Center on a research project to fabricate MEMS devices.

He added that the ISA is helping UKTI drive its Global Value Chain program. “Our goal is now to encourage and develop more direct business to business interaction. A good example of this is the agreement signed in December between Lord Mandelson and Azim Premji of Wipro, which aims to promote UK/Indian joint work to develop new and innovative low carbon technologies.

“We are looking forward to the next stage of development of this important relationship, in particular, the promotion of the UK Core Initiative Group. We aim to have increasing representation from each other’s industries at each other’s events, including the ISA session on Innovation Ecosystems. And we want increasing number of companies working together and develop partnerships.”

He concluded that this indeed is an exciting area and an exciting time for the semiconductor industry. Delegates at ISA Vision Summit 2010 can look forward to meeting leading UK companies, such as the TTP Group, PowerOasis, Advanced Hall Sensors and the Scottish Microelectronics Center.