Taiwan-India, China-India linkages

Anyone following AnnaLee Saxenian's work is aware of the close connections between the semiconductor industries in Silicon Valley, Taiwan, and - more recently - Shanghai. I have been wondering for a while whether India had the potential to become the next node in this evolving network.

While the semiconductor industry is still quite small in India, there have been some interesting developments. Silicon Valley firms already do some of their chip design work to Bangalore, Hyderabad etc. Plans for Fab City in Hyderabad appear to be firming up after much bickering and speculation. Now, a panel discussion between the Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association (TSIA) and its Indian counterpart, ISA, is being heralded. It's a small step: TSIA's discussions revolved around partnering with India for chip design and embedded software.

During a panel discussion in STMicroelectronics campus in Greater Noida, between TSIA and the India Semiconductor Association (ISA) on "Opportunities and areas of cooperation between India and Taiwan," TSIA was quite clear that in the absence of an ecosystem and industry infrastructure for setting up manufacturing units, including fabs in India, Taiwanese firms would be ready to tap the IC design and embedded software development skills of Indian engineers for innovating and developing new technologies and products.

"Taiwan is an established manufacturing hub in the semiconductor industry, and we see a great potential to outsource a host of requirements ranging from chip design, testing, packaging and embedded software to developing IPs from our Indian counterparts," said, Paul Chiang, VP, Nanya Technology.

James P. M. Chen, VP, Sales center, Winbond Electronics, a leading Taiwanese semiconductor said his company would be willing to invest in India or collaborate with Indian firms to build a R&D facility as there is no dearth of quality designers in India.

"Voice&Data" seem to have a particular interest in tracking the India-China story...