Cypress to expand design center in Hyd

HYDERABAD, SAN JOSE: Cypress Semiconductor Corp. announced a $2 million plan to expand its year-old semiconductor design center in Hyderabad, India. The center, which has primarily designed network search engines (NSEs) over the past year, will broaden its focus to include next-generation NSEs, 90 nanometer scale logic devices and systems engineering capabilities. Expansion plans involve the addition of a silicon validation lab, equipment and engineering talent to support these new functions.

Cypress currently operates 15 design centers across the U.S., Ireland, Turkey and India. The facility in Hyderabad is Cypress's second in India, specializes in USB chips, SRAMs, framers and clocks, the other being located Bangalore with a 175 employee base. Cypress plans to add 33 engineers to its 17 person Hyderabad team by the end of 2005.

"NSEs, used in high-speed networks, are a major growth area for Cypress. We are a leading supplier and intend to build upon our strong position in this space," said Narayana L. Pidugu, design center manager of Cypress' Hyderabad design center. "This design center expansion also gives us the opportunity to leverage local design talent to support other fast-growing areas of Cypress' business."

"Many of the engineers who were involved in designing Cypress products in the U.S. are now getting the opportunity to return home to continue their work," said Nagendra Cherukupalli, senior director of new product development at Cypress in the U.S. "Our business philosophy is to grow our design centers, in places where there is a large base of highly skilled engineering talent."

In addition to its worldwide design facilities, Cypress operates two chip fabrication facilities in the U.S. and a state-of-the-art assembly and test plant near Cavite City in the Philippines.