India emerges as the second largest ARM hub after UK

BANGALORE, INDIA: The mobile phone or a PDA you are carrying could well be using at least three ARM chips in it. As ARM Holding PLC, the “de facto king” among the mobile chip industry is reaching out to tap on the vast Indian talents, Bangalore unit has emerged as the second largest ARM site after Cambridge.

ARM acquired Artisan Components, a development center in Bangalore in 2004 besides setting up its own center in Bangalore a year later.

Currently the total ARM strength is 750 spread across 35 locations globally that includes Sunnyvale, Austin, Sophia Antipolis, Munich, Taiwan, Japan, China, and India. The Indian unit employees over 200 engineers and is expected to grow at 50-100 percent annually.

Talking to CIOL, Bill Parson, Executive Vice-President HR at ARM Holding Plc said, ``ARM is an intellectual property (IP) company whose assets are its people, patent portfolio, design methods and experience. We can attribute this significant development here to the shrinking of our US operations. We feel that India offers a huge potential for growth especially in the IT and telecom industry and we will continue to grow here at 50-100 percent annually.’’

The Cambridge-based chip major, ARM designs the technology that lies at the heart of advanced digital products, from wireless, networking and consumer entertainment solutions to imaging, automotive, security and storage devices.  

Regardless of growth in China, Parson feels, ``India certainly has more potential than even China. Again the problem of English pops up and despite China taking to English very seriously, we still feel India is a better bet.’’

Analysts say that Parson is in India along with a high-level team from Cambridge to look for opportunities to expand in India and are visiting several industries and talking to the state governments.

Hermann Hauser, co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners and Acorn Computers, the founders of Advanced RISC Machines (now called ARM) along with Apple Computers in 1990 says, ``Unlike skeptics, European companies are still experiencing huge growth on the lines of Nokia that has 85 percent of the mobile handsets, ARM that has almost 90 percent of the digital and mobile chips and also Vodafone, one of the largest mobile operators in revenue terms.’’

``ARM core strength lies in technology at low-cost, low-power and simple and that is what Bangalore offers, says Hauser adding that India’s vast talent needs to be tapped upon.’’ 

Commenting on at least three ARM chips in the new Apple iPhone, Hauser said, ``ARM is in 90 percent of the world's mobile phone handsets. We are in WiFi, baseband processors and applications processors and most of the world's MP3 players. So it's at least three. However, no work was done by the Bangalore unit as it all dates back to over three years but likely to see more of such projects here in the future."