Despite the deep depression miseries around I believe that the semiconductor IP market is growing substantially. SoCs are getting integrated with more analog and this is fuelling the need for analog and mixed signal IPs, which is clearly emerging as the next key opportunity. There is a severe shortage for analog and mixed signal design resources. The consumer and convergence electronics also demand a great deal from analog performance, power, and cost that there is a need for differentiated solutions – these are difficult for SoC companies to develop internally, at the risk of losing focus on their core system expertise.

Today there is a strong urge within the industry to simplify the design and implementation of hardware and software by driving consistency in processor and peripheral interfaces, promoting reuse and compatibility in mobile devices. As a result, the new MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface) alliance is actively encouraging the adoption of the preset specifications throughout the industry value chain driving the companies to adapt to these new standards.

Alongside, power management circuits, which are increasingly getting integrated in SoCs and wireless LAN are being increasingly adopted across the organizations; fuelling the growth. Hence, it would be interesting to watch how the whole semiconductor space will pan out in the next five years, with significant revolution happening now in 65 nanometers as the 90 nm technology is skipped by many while changing over from 130nm.

There are quite a handful of opportunities for an entrepreneur who wants to be in the semiconductor space. Segment wise I believe education, healthcare, and security would be the key drivers. But not everything will be rosy. Challenges per se, I would say, that funding will be the major issue as many venture firms are reluctant to fund the companies that have not started making revenue and most of whose ideas still lie on paper.