Innovation enables every milestone at Ittiam!

I first met Srini Rajam, chairman and CEO, Ittiam Systems, back in 2002-03 — a time when I’d just returned from Hong Kong and Singapore, having finished my first stint with Global Sources, and was still with Reed Elsevier (EDN Asia).

Today, I am proud to report a huge milestone in Ittiam’s journey — the company has completed a decade’s existence, and still remains India’s leading semiconductor company!

Technology for people
Today, Ittiam celebrated its journey of a decade and beyond! Speaking about technology for people, Rajam said, “Our technology has reached farther than we imagined!”From the use of audio, video and communications in flight, train and car, it has moved on to personal communication, tablets and enterprise.As an example, it has gone beyond from beginner’s recording to home recording on to professional recording.

Do note that all of this hasn’t really been about fun and leisure only! For instance, Ittiam’s solutions have made their way into head mounted display for industrial applications, DVR unit for surveillance recording, IPTV encoding for broadcast head end, and WLAN SoC for automotive application.

Over the years, Ittiam has gained recognition as a key technology player. Today, it boasts of one of the widest range of technologies for embedded systems development (see figure).

Ittiam has gained a lot of headway in IP and system design, and chip design IP. Currently, it boasts of 45 patent filings and 28 patent grants.

IP business model
On the IP side of things, Ittiam has emerged as the model IP pioneer for India! Ittiam pioneered the IP licensing model from India. Ittiam retains the IP rights and shares the market risk with customers. Rajam added: “Royalty is like pricing a cricket bat on runs scored. The star players drive your success!”

He added that Ittiam had managed to touch the ‘sweet spot’ in terms of IP royalty in the range of 30-40 percent. There has been a steady growth in Ittiam’s royalty share of revenue, and is forecast at 25 percent as of 2010-11 estimates. Sustained growth in design wins has led to a situation from the year ending March 2004 revenue $4.8 million or Rs. 22 crores to year ending March 2010 with a revenue of $11.5M or Rs. 52 crores. From 2004-10, it witnessed six years of 15.7 percent CAGR.

From starting its India headquarter in Jan. 2001 and the US subsidiary in Feb. 2001, Ittiam has since gone on to open a France (Europe) subsidiary in Jun. 2007, and a Japanese branch office in June 2009, righ up to Singapore — where it set up the Asia subsidiary in Aug. 2010.

The next convergence!
Ittiam has set its sight on the new home for the best of multimedia and communication. The smartphone is now the next PC for convergence. Around 6 million mobile phones and tablets are likely to be shipped in 2010-11 with Ittiam’s HD video.These would be 720p HD video record and playback devices on SoC devices rated only for SD resolution.

Ittiam says that it has a lot to offer for smartphones and tablets in the coming year. The future is said to be powered by twin engines for industrial electronics and mobile communications. Industrial electronics should see complete applications and systems, while smartphones and tablets will likely witness a 3X growth over the next three years of OEM units with Ittiam IP.

All the best wishes to Ittiam in the new year, and the years ahead!