Industry snapshot

The Indian VLSI design services contributed approximately 13 percent to the overall revenues and 11 percent to overall workforce. There has been an increase in consumer and portable/wireless segment, that has indirectly contributed to the growth of the VLSI design service industry in India. Spec to tape-out designs are gradually increasing as well, largely contributed to by the captive units. The IP development will continue to grow steadily during the forecast period.

The Indian hardware/board design industry contributed to 7.2 percent of the overall technical workforce in the design services industry. The trend of VLSI design houses transforming into one-stop design houses has increased the activity in the hardware/board design area. Growth is likely to come from consumer electronics and portable/wireless product segment in 2008. Product development activities for the Indian market will further boost growth.

The Indian embedded software industry is by and large, the most significant contributor. Embedded software contributed approximately 81 percent to the overall design services revenues and 82 percent to the overall workforce. Having a local manufacturing ecosystem will boost this segment with end-to-end product development and roll-out happening from India. Singh said that middleware/embedded applications along with testing will drive the growth in the market.

Two vectors for industry
Singh added that there were two vectors that the industry could go to. One, focus on export revenue and go closer to markets -- to their customers' markets and be part of product development. And two, focus on product development, as it would drive semiconductors and embedded design. He termed the growth achieved in the last three decades as version 1.0 and said India was ready to move on to version 2.0 in the coming years.

In version 2.0, the dynamics between the semiconductor industry ecosystem players would be transformed in the coming years. Also, there will be a disruption, which will see the entities shift their strategies, align and engage with each other within this ecosystem in a manner that will take them up one level in the overall product value chain.

E.K. Bharat Bhushan, director general, STPI, released the report. He commented: "India is a very important destination. A wide range of design activities are now going on here. Semiconductor design has made rapid strides. India currently has strengths in areas such as IP development, and core advantages in terms of talent and local domestic market."