TI to foray into Indian semiconductor market
By siliconindia staff writer   |   Tuesday, 28 November 2006, 18:30 IST
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Bangalore: On the sidelines of announcement of the hosting of the 9th annual Texas Instruments Developer Conference (TIDC) on November 30 and December 1 in Bangalore, Texas instruments also made public its plans of tapping the Indian semiconductor market. Speaking on the occasion, Biswadip Mitra, Managing Director, TI-India said, “Thus far the face of India for TI has been as an R & D center. The market conditions in the country have forced us to make that our new focus area. It’s a once in a generation opportunity to be part on such a market.” He added that the rapidly growing wireless, telecom, entertainment, medical and automotive electronics sectors are fuelling the demand for semiconductors in India and TI would focus on all these areas, Mitra said. “We want to touch every single phone call, internet connection, photograph taken, and song listened to with the power of our analog and signal processing technologies,” said Sham Banerji, Head Software Development, TI India. Director for Marketing and Sales in India, Arun Jain said that the market was positioned to take off and TI sees an exponential growth in the industrial, consumer and wireless markets. According to a Frost and Sullivan study, the Indian semiconductor market, pegged at $1.14 billion in 2005, is clocking a 30 per cent annual growth, and is expected to touch $2.3 billon in 2007 and $36 billion by 2015 TI is expanding its footprint in India by expanding its sales offices and partner network. While it has R&D centers in Bangalore and Chennai, it has opened new sales offices in New Delhi and Pune. The company also has four distributors. Despite the focus being shifted to upping the sales ante, India will continue to be the R&D center for TI, noted Mitra. The company, with around 1,400 engineers in India, recently opened an additional R&D center in Chennai to focus on wireless arena. Annual developers meet: The 9th edition of the TIDC will focus on showcasing and solutions created for emergent markets. It will provide a platform of interaction for developers, customers and partners of TI. “We are expecting 60 different tracks, and speakers from over 20 different companies for the event, “ said Banerji. At the event, the company will showcase solutions developed by its partners using TI’s technology. “Some of them will even make announcements, in the areas of low-cost handsets and broadband services,” said Banerji. With video taking a larger role in various products, the conference will showcase a demonstration of TI silicon-based high definition video conferencing. Hybrid set-top boxes will also be showcased at the event, along with the showcasing of a thought controlled “bionic arm”. Running through all the sessions at TIDC will be the ‘See the future, Create Your Own’ theme. The Pre-TIDC India hand-on tutorials will be run on 28-29 November. “We plan to help in building the pipeline and taking RFID and analog technologies in to the curriculum in colleges, and this is a step in that direction,” said Banerji. Notably, the conference will have representations from the IIT s and the NITs as well. It will be attended by over 1000 delegates, and will feature 50-60 companies.

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