Is VLSI the Next Forte for India

Hitherto projected as a software super power, India has

now set its sights on becoming an all-round IT super
source as India’s hardware design engineers join hands
with their software developer brethren.
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.

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.

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