NEW DELHI, INDIA: Presenting the highlights of the panel discussion on the electronic design automation (EDA) industry, held as part of the 22nd international conference on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) design and the 8th international conference on embedded systems.

Jyotirmay Daw, MD, Mentor Graphics India
* Mentor has already successfully conceived and productized a new idea completely out of India now extensively used by design teams across the world
India needs more architects and not engineers.
* Indian VLSI/EDA engineers need to have a more long-term approach and focus.
* The Indian mindset of not risk taking is a huge deterrent and is the reason behind many products and startups not happening out of India.

Apurva Kalia, VP R&D, Cadence India
* 30 percent of global EDA tool usage is in India.
* Interms of EDA technology, already India is doing enough and for products to happen there must be collaboration between IC design teams and EDA developers over and above the collaboration between the industry and academia.
* The EDA industry has not been static and has morphed over the years.
* The focus is on applying current tools to current problems and not developing new tools for next generation problems.

Vamsi Bopanna, CTO, Xilinx India
* It is no longer about going to silicon but what to do with the silicon itself.
* Lack of exit options is stunting innovation in the industry and is disincentivizing those with ideas and keen to start on their own.
* The emphasis is on software and not delivering an end to end solution for the clients and thus there is no compulsion on the need to go beyond.

Rajiv Kapur, MD, Broadcom India
* The Indian management of EDA companies need to look beyond tasks and providing services.
* There is a clear disparity between EDA industry headcount in India and its R&D contribution.
* Few years back, as manufacturing shifted to Asia-Pacific, India had a golden opportunity to create something in the DFM (design for manufacturing) arena, but there was no effort.
* EDA tools are not still solving all of the design problems and that is a big opportunity.
* Indian design and designers are ahead of the rest of the world.

Prof. Jacob Abraham, University of Texas, Austin
* India need to have more PhDs as EDA issues are complex; those with Masters degree or a one or two year effort, are not simply enough.
* There also needs to be more research-led collaboration.
* The EDA needs to work with design people more and more.
* There needs to be a quantum leap in the capability of EDA to address.
* EDA is already moving into other areas like biotechnology and will need to.

Sponsored by the VLSI Society of India (VSI) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) among others, the VLSI conference is a forum for researchers and designers to present and discuss various aspects of VLSI design, electronic design automation (EDA), enabling technologies, and embedded systems.

Leading Electronic Design Automation (EDA) and IC design companies will display their products at the technical exhibition and industry forum to be held between Jan 5-7. Also, there will be a dedicated one day event, on Jan 7th to provide student community opportunity to learn more about VLSI and interact with the industry. The conference covers the entire gamut of activities under the two arms of the semiconductor industry: VLSI, and embedded systems.

The VLSI Society of India was formed in 1989 with the noble goal of making India a strong force in VLSI. Activities in the VLSI area in India were limited at that time, and the number of professionals working in the VLSI area were also fewer. Now, over a hundred companies are working in India in the areas of chip design, embedded system design, electronic design automation, and design services.

The VLSI Design Conference, which has been sponsored by the VLSI Society of India, has grown significantly in the past 15 years, with the number of participants reaching 800. The VLSI Design and Test Workshops, another event sponsored by the VLSI Society of India, has also grown since its inception in 1998 and now attracts over 300 participants.