MosChip set to launch products by June

BANGALORE - Indian microchip designer MosChip Semiconductor Technology, designs chip and outsources manufacture and is based in Hyderabad. It is lagging behind its original launch date set for July last year following design problems.

"We have got over the initial problems and expect eight products to go into customer sampling in two to three months," said Chief Financial Officer Vivek Bhargava.

MosChip is representative of a growing trend in which the design of chips and their large-scale manufacture are two separate businesses, differing from a model led by companies like Intel that own captive fabrication units.

As a 'fabless' chipmaker, MosChip aims to break ground by using India's low-cost software and engineering talent to design microprocessors for a variety of devices, while getting capital-intensive manufacture done in locations like Taiwan.

Its investors include a unit of Singapore-based contract manufacturer Flextronics International and U.S.-based multimedia chipmaker ESS Technology Inc.

MosChip, which now sells chips designed by a U.S. subsidiary, plans to initially sell its new chips to existing customers in Asian locations like Taiwan and Hong Kong, Bhargava said.

"We are also looking to sell our products to U.S-based companies but we currently don't have the scale of operations to attack this market aggressively," Bhargava said.