IC Design in India
Perhaps the most important event that has occurred in the area of design has been the arrival of Texas Instruments in India in 1986 to develop CAD products for IC design. Then it got ambitious. Today, designs in application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), linear ICs and application specific memories account for an important part of the products that Texas Instruments ships from its Bangalore base. Before the MNCs ventured into this field, the development activity was restricted to the government sector. Projects involving design of ICs, specially ASICs, had been set up by Department of Electronics (DoE) at IIT Centres (Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kharagpur), Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore), Jadavpur University (Calcutta) and Central Electrical Engineering Research University (Pilani). Since then over 80 different types of ASICs have been designed and supplied to the customers by DoE centres at Bangalore, Noida, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bhubaneshwar, Pune, Thiruvanan-thapuram and New Delhi. The centres at Bangalore and Noida are being operated by Semiconductor Complex Limited (SCL) on behalf of DoE. Among other public sector companies involved in the effort of designing chips are Bharat Electronics Limited and ITI. It was, however, Texas Instruments’ enterprise that brought other MNCs like SGS Thomson and Cadence into the country.
MNCs in India
What has made India the design hub, according to some in the industry, is the saving of 33 per cent to 50 per cent in engineering costs. However, there are others who believe that no matter now dramatic these savings may seem, such considerations do not percolate down to the street price of the chip. Finally, the net price of a chip designed in India will be no different from another coming out of a design shop in the Silicon Valley of USA. The question that remains then is, ‘What attracts the MNCs to India?’
The answer, according to experts, is that it is a lot easier to build a team in India, and when you give customers a product ahead of time, they are prepared to pay a premium for it. The other reasons are the potential market that is expected to come up in the next five years in India and the proximity to the high chip consuming industry in the Asia Pacific region.
Other players in the region are Arcus Technology, SAS, DCM and Usha Matra. The close relation of software with chip designing is what makes the situation ideal for India-situated design companies. The development of a semiconductor chip based VLSI (very large scale integrated circuit) requires an enormous development of software. This is where India has a marked edge over other developing countries.
Another factor that has aided designing has been the availability of electronic design software and design automation. This assistance is offered by companies like Apara Design Automation, Wipro Infotech, Digipro Design Automation, Future Techno Designs Pte Ltd, NIIT, Usha Matra etc.
Among the public sector undertakings, Indian Telephone Industries had, by the mid-1990s, set up a tiny 200 wafer-a-week, 10cm (4-inch), 3-micron fab for ASIC production, and has since made significant headway over the years. Bharat Electronics Ltd branched away from its traditional defence focus earlier this decade and is an important volume producer of ICs. It signed on SGS Thomson Microelectronics to help boost its fabrication output from 15 million to 100 million units using the 15cm (6-inch) wafer and 1.5-micron technology, and has been graduating from strength to strength since then.
The private sector achievements read like a book of records in electronics. Texas Instruments India, like many multinational subsidiaries in the country, has invested heavily in VLSI facilities. Its centre for design is one of the largest in the world. It recently designed a completely Indian core chip called Ankoor. It is the first US company to have designed a core processor (a chip loaded with software) completely in India. As far as memory chips are concerned, the first full-chip memory design for 4M DRAM in India was completed as early as 1993. An 8M flash memory chip has also been designed in India.
Motorola’s Bangalore design centre has designed some chips for the Iridium project. It is now designing chips for Teledesic, the satellite communications company in which Bill Gates, Craig Mc Caw, Motorola and Boeing have equity stakes. IBM’s centre develops ASIC chips for IBM products that are manufactured in fabrication centres abroad. Its ASIC centre at Bangalore is among the twelve across the world to have the capability of designing a complete processor. IBM has complete skills in VLSI, planner design, electronic design automation software and firmware. The hardware/VLSI team’s service is focussed on front-end design, functional verification, model development and library development. Wipro Infotech has designed a full-fledged networking ATM system for local and wide areas, an IEEEB 94 link chip and a cash-control system for a client in the US. It also provides hardware and ASIC design, operating systems like UNIX, NT, non-stop kernel, device drivers, middleware for distributed computing, UNIX/NT interoperability tools and embedded systems. Aside from the ability to design ASICs from concept to silicon, it has the ability to design multiprocessor systems and other hardware for high-speed switches and adaptors. Wipro specialises in hardware (ASIC/board/system) design with extensive use of hardware design languages, synthesis and simulation tools using either Verilog, VDHL or schematic entry as the front-end. Wipro has a lot to show in terms of experience with synthesis and simulation tools like Synopsis and industry-standard tools like motive-to-design arrays or standard cells for different ASIC foundaries. DCM Data Systems, pioneer in this field, has developed chips for ISRO and Defence Research Development Organisation. Now it is designing chips for a cellular company. It has also designed a chip that extends the capability of a peripheral-connecting device in a computer and is now discussing possibilities with a few computer manufacturers. DCM is also producing chips for mobile communications, functional programming languages and computer architecture. These designs are active in ASICs. Among the company’s ASIC/PPGA design tools, the significant ones are the VDHL system simulator, DC Expert, FPGA Compiler, PCI Bus Interface Models, Vantage Simulator, Cadence Verilog X: Simulator Altera Max+II, PLSM-VDHL and PLS-MAGNUM.
TVSE designs chips and electronics for peripherals, and is perhaps one of the few successful hardware exporters in the country today. In addition to these companies there are small start-ups which are sometimes able to obtain subcontracts from companies like IBM. Nevertheless, there are new stalwarts like Arcus Technology which started in 1990 with gate array for telecom requirements of ITI. Arcus soon matured to be able to attract and tackle large-sized, state-of-the-art design projects. These include challenging, full-custom chips for instrumentation applications on the one hand and highly complex SDH chip design on the other. Arcus supports a few EDA tool vendors to promote their products in India and also promote the VLSI design culture and capabilities. Arcus had already completed almost 20 ASICs by 1994 and had proven its design capabilities in various application areas in contemporary technologies. Arcus successfully executed the SDH mapper project which had approximately a 250,000-gate complexity and was the largest ASIC in Asia. In 1995 Arcus won two more contracts from major Korean semiconductor companies. Arcus also licensed key analogue design and technology to a Korean semiconductor company. This was probably the first time any Indian company had licensed technology to a foreign company in the area of VLSI. Today Arcus has completed almost 50 ASICs and over 10 design projects including technology and product licensing to Korean, European and American companies. Godrej and Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd specialises in the design and development of microprocessor/microcontroller based electronics. Synopsys India Pvt Ltd is the largest R&D centre ouside the US engaged in the development of the fastest Verilog simulator VCS and VHDL simulator VSS. Synopsys India specialises in the development of leading edge EDA software products to be used for solving the problems of next-generation hardware designs as well as for providing state-of-the-art design methodologies and consulting services. The presence of software developers as well as design engineers in the facility provides a unique opportunity for close interaction between software developers and end-users of the products. Another company, U&I Scotty Computers Pvt Ltd, has immense talents in the field of ASIC design and development. Its products include a high-end RSIC processor. Bangalore based N-Core Technology, apart from marketing Yantra, its lightweight multimedia laptop PC, has also moved focus on marketing its hardware design skills internationally. The company had announced in 1996 that it would focus on the design of digital signal processor based systems and ASICs.
VLSI in Communications
There has been a spurt in VLSI devices over the last 15 years as a result of the growth in mobile communication systems which enabled a person to communicate with anyone from anywhere at any time. Mobile communication is now almost in the third generation stage with the introduction of data services along with voice and intelligent network control. It is projected to arrive at the fourth generation by year 2000 by when multimedia services would also be included. VLSI technology will be propelled by wireless and multimedia communications for the next 10 years, which will give the Indian VLSI/ASIC designing industry a fillip. Perhaps this will give a boost to fabrication facilities in India. So far the fabrication has been miniscule. Most in the industry are not optimistic since the seed capital for setting up an IC fabrication plant is prohibitively expensive for any potential investor in the country. But with faster than expected growth in wireless and multimedia communications, it may prove more feasible. It is true that even ten years back no one could imagine India producing VLSI design.
Government’s Initiatives
Even the government sector has not lagged behind in terms of involvement with higher technology. Over 80 different types of ASICs have been designed and supplied to customers by DoE. The department has 26 projects on VLSI, involving an outlay of about Rs 160 million, to keep pace with the development. Much more manpower will be required in the future.
The DoE has announced a special manpower development for VLSI design to develop infrastructure for this industry. The objective of the programme is to make India a major VLSI design testing and application development destination globally and to catalyse an increase in India’s share of the global market from the current level of 0.5 per cent to 5 per cent by the end of the Ninth Plan. The basic philosophy behind the programme is for the government to play the role of a catalyst and infrastructure provider. The key ingredients of the government inputs for this area are: development of trained manpower, nurturing of a few institutions of excellence in CAD of LSI/VLSI, promoting and projecting India’s strength.
The Ninth Plan Study Team on Microelectronics has recommended development of specialised manpower at BE/B. Tech, ME/M. Tech and Ph. D levels, development of specialised knowledge centres, silicon siliconisation of the designs through an India Chip Programme and promotional efforts to market India as a global destination for VLSI design.
A few MNCs have begun to provide vital support to institutions in terms of expertise and instituting fellowships. India may soon emerge as strongly in design as it has in software development.
Worldwide VLSI Market forecast
IC Insights has raised its 2008 IC unit volume forecast. The market research company now expects IC unit volumes to increase 9% in 2008, to 170.5 billion units, up 1% from its mid-year update. "Moreover, there is a good chance that IC unit volumes could increase 10% this year, which would make 2008 a record seventh year in a row of double-digit unit volume growth," IC Insights reported.
Although unit volumes are on the up, IC Insights said the adjustment to its 2008 growth rate forecast came about primarily due to price degradation. The company reported it now expects a 4% dip in ASPs (average selling prices) for 2008 as compared to 2007 ASPs.
Meanwhile, IC Insights is holding steady on its 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 IC market growth rate forecasts of 8%, 11%, 13%, and 16% growth respectively. The company said that while lower worldwide GDP growth in 2009 as compared to 2008 might serve to reduce IC unit volume growth to only 7 to 8% next year, the large capital spending cutbacks for IC production this year are forecast to stabilize IC ASPs in 2009.
Conclusion
India has hitherto been projected as a software super source. However, it is now believed that India should set its sights on being an all-round IT super source. It should aim to be the IT design centre of the world by 2005.
If this is successful, the effort should see exports of design services and manufactured goods climbing to over US $5 billion per year by 2005. The design opportunity, according to MAIT (Manufacturers’ Association of Information Technology), covers the entire gamut of the information technology industry. For instance, India is already, though in a small way, an important centre for chip design. The design work is completed in India and the manufacture takes place overseas. The potential in the area of chip design is what would primarily give India a very sharp edge in worldwide market.
