New platform to promote Indian semiconductor incepted

By siliconindia   |   Friday, 29 October 2004, 19:30 IST
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BANGALORE, 29th October: As many as 31 semiconductor companies came together to form “India Semiconductor Association (ISA).” The member companies include Analog Devices, Magma Design Automation, Texas Instrument, Intel, Cadence, Centillium, Purple Vision, Agere System, Open Silicon, Synplicity and Broadcom. Sridhar Mitta of e4elabs, Rajendra Khare, MD of Broadcom India, Uma Mahesh, Director and Design Center head of Insilica India and V Veerapan of Tessolve are instrumental in bringing together the companies under one umbrella. “The mission is to promote the global awareness about the Indian semiconductor industry,” said Anand Anandkumar, MD of Magma Design automation and now the vice-chairman of the newborn ISA. About 100 semiconductor companies in India, employing an estimate of 9500 Integrated Chip (IC) design engineers, have shown promising growth in the recent past. “However, the Indian semiconductor industry is yet to get the recognition and glory on the lines of the software industry. So this forum is to catalyze chip industry to leapfrog into the global arena,” said Janikiraman, President and CEO of Mindtree’s R & D Services. ISA, the first semiconductor organization in India, has followed suit of its neighbor countries -- Taiwan and South Korea. “Through this medium, we believe in creating an ecosystem of semiconductivity which can help us in enhancing our operational efficiency and also pooling investments,” said Khare. ISA is partnering with the state governments and STPI (Bangalore) to organize a one-day conference titled ”Semiconductor Industry In India: The Next Big Thing” as apart of the Bangalore IT.com—India’s biggest IT fair, to be held during the first week of November.