One piece of good news: The semiconductor industry for the first time broke the $300 Bn barrier. The global semiconductor industry posted record sales totaling $335.8 Bn in 2014.

2015 is likely to be a critical year on multiple fronts for semiconductor companies. Despite challenges in the semiconductor industry, innovation continues. Geometry shrinkage continues. The evolution and refinement of a variety processes, memory technologies, and packaging technologies are creating new technology frontiers. The evolution of mobile technology is what's driving the overall industry.

There's a great deal of potential disruption and meaningful product improvements coming down the pipe. Smartphones, Smart Watches, Tablets and other innovative consumer devices increasingly shape the boundaries of what's possible in computing. With new 20nm hardware and 64-bit SoCs, we should see strong scaling on all fronts. Later in the year we should see 14nm hardware as well!

On that note, we present to you this edition of siliconindia which is focused on Semiconductor industry. Our editorial team evaluated several companies founded or managed by Indians in the U.S. to present you the 20 most promising semiconductor companies.

While we chronicle and recognize the achievements of Indian Americans, we have also been bringing to you India's technological progress. The last five years have been fairly significant for the Indian semiconductor industry, witnessing a critical shift toward end-to end chip design services, as well as Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM). This has given rise to many indigenous design services companies, some of which chose niche markets in the areas of wireless, analog and Intellectual Property (IP) building blocks and specialized design services.

There are more than 120 companies in India focused on semiconductor design for global products. Nearly 2,000 chips are being designed every year in India and more than 20,000 engineers are working on various aspects of chip design and verification. Last month there were two significant announcements in India: Two semiconductor wafer fabrication plants are supposed to be set up with a total investment of $10 billion. Like the global semiconductor industry, this year we will see some real action on ground in India.