Sometime towards the beginning of 2004, the country’s leading design house was scouting for a strategic partner for development and deployment of its CAD flow and methodologies. It was a particularly testing time; technology was evolving rapidly, becoming more complex with every passing day and the design house was keen to figure out a way to bring about custom automation of its tools. But why talk of this leading ‘design house’ in an article about — as most of you would have figured out by now — Interra Systems? Because, that design house zeroed in on Interra as its strategic partner. It was hardly a few months after the latter had started its operations in Bangalore.

Interra was entrusted with this responsibility at a time when it was going through a transition — from being a player in the EDA vertical Interra was now diversifying into the CAD services arena. That put the company on a strong platform and helped it move on to newer market segments and customers.

Two way street
Interra does not fit into the description of a typical IP company, or for that matter a pure services driven firm. In fact, as Kousik Mukherjee, Director Bangalore Operations, puts it, “It would not be right to demarcate us as an IP company or a services company. Our mission is to assist SoC, System, ASIC, and Digital Product Designers to ensure the rapid creation of new solutions.”

The company does this through a repertoire of IP technologies in diverse areas — like memory development systems, RTL synthesis, HDL analyzers, Digital Media software, QC tools, and Codecs. It compliments these technology offerings with engineering services focused on the Electronic Design and Digital Media domain.

But why would one choose to engage Interra for providing engineering services despite there being a number of pure play services companies with proven track record in the market? Responds Mukherjee, “At Interra, engineering services are offered by engineers who have a unique combination of experience in software services and off-the-shelf IP development.” Incidentally, the engineers in the company boast of a broad-based skill that covers product design, solution implementation, and R&D activities. Around 55 percent of the firm’s revenue comes from services including offshore projects, on-site services, and dedicated facilities. Mukherjee points out that despite India’s recent progress and consumer boom, Interra is yet to penetrate the Indian market. Typically, U.S., Europe, and Japan constitute the main markets for its product offerings.