NEW DELHI, INDIA: Leading industry executives have called on the Indian semiconductor industry to look beyond its services success and play an expanded role in R&D. India as a growing consumer market and thus offering immense opportunities in sectors like telecom, healthcare and energy etc. also came in for discussion highlighting the role the industry can play.

India-specific innovation was the key message with some early attempts  showcased at the "Made for India" forum that was a key highlight of the 22nd international conference on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) design and the 8th international conference on embedded systems which successfully concluded.

The conference witnessed over 800 delegates (domestic and overseas). The winners of the first ever EDA software contest were also announced and presented the awards. Anupam Bakshi of Agnisys won the second prize and the first prize was jointly awarded to C Karfa, D Sakar & C Mandal of IIT Kharagpur .

According to Dr. Ajoy K. Bose, Chairman, President & CEO, Atrenta: "It has been proven time and again that moving design abstraction to the next higher level is required if technology is to advance.  In today's environment, this concept needs to be applied creatively to the current challenges being faced by the industry which go beyond technical and complexity issues to significant economic and business factors."

In his remarks, Rajiv Sehgal, Organizing Chair & Director Engineering, Mentor Graphics, India, said: "VLSI has always been a platform of choice for the industry in this region and with the debut of "Made for India" platform this year, we have taken a step towards catalyzing India-specific innovation. It is a sign of the conference's value and role that despite the tough economic climate and 26/11, VLSI 2009 was received and attended well."

According to Atul Jain, Tutorial Chair & Director, Wireless India Design, Texas Instruments,: "An important aspect of VLSI conference is the increased collaboration it fosters between industry and academia through its various events and participation of faculty and students. This year, we focused on VLSI design along with embedded software and we received large number of proposal which was then reviewed by over 70 experts from academia & industry from across the world."

The highlight of the conference was the exciting and interactive panel discussion on diverse topics. Panel discussion titled "Why is design automation and reuse of analog designs increasingly trailing the world?" brought out a comparative analysis of analog and digital IP development. Another on "EDA Made-in-India, Fact or Fiction?" witnessed a heated debate on India's true role in R&D for EDA.

The discussion on "Solutions for small Cars" as part of the "Made for India" forum and the panel discussion on Industry-academia collaboration were also well received.