Intel aims to be an Internet building block company

BNAGALORE: US based Intel Corporation with its 800 people development center

based at Bangalore is aiming to become an Internet building block company in the

coming years. "When we started in 1970 we were known as a silicon company

but now we are aiming to become an end-to-end Internet building block company by

engaging ourselves into broad and deep R&D initiatives all over the

globe," this was informed by John E Davies, vice president and sales and

marketing group director at Intel.

The company has a worldwide network of over 7,000 scientists engaged in

designing the digital future at more than 75 Intel lab locations through out the

world. "We have earmarked close to $ 4,100 million for our R&D

activities worldwide for the year 2002 and we are in the process of increasing

our international presence. Firstly we identify the challenges and barriers,

grow the options and then select the best suitable set of solutions to seed the

technological partnerships for the future," he explained.

"Our primary focus at the labs is to continuously break the barriers to

Moore's law to drive faster, better and less expensive digital products in the

computing and communications markets. Recently we have developed a 90 nanometer

process technology and a tera hertz transistor and we believe that these kind of

technological developments will make sure that we arrive at cost effective

solutions for the industry," he explained.

On the communication and networking front the company is aiming to accelerate

the convergence of communication and networking devices by developing

technologies to deliver seamless Internet and communications access. "We

intend to architect the future of computing by accelerating the technologies and

products necessary to make new uses of computing a reality," he informed.

The company has started a new business for providing ASIC design services for

internal and external clients. "We have started the ASIC initiative, as of

now we are doing this from 8 labs worldwide and we have already taped out two

chips out of this initiative," he added.

As of now 15 divisions of the company are operational in Bangalore which,

employs 800 software professionals. "By the end of this year we are likely

to grow to 1000 figure in Bangalore. Our center in Bangalore is quite important

to us and this can be proved by the fact that during the last year more than 42

invention disclosure came out of Bangalore lab," John informed.