Tessolve sets up test facility in Bangalore

BANGALORE -- Tessolve Inc., provider of engineering-focused testing of semiconductors, has announced the setting up of its over 50,000-square-feet, testing facility in Bangalore. The facility will offer a complete range of product engineering (RF, digital and mixed signal) services to global and local customers. The company has invested Rs. 45 crore in the facility, and has 50 testing professionals on its rolls, which it plans to grow to 120 by the end of 2006.

P. Raja Manickam, founder and CEO, Tessolve, said: "Till date, the Indian semiconductor industry ended with the design phase up to GDS2. The setting up of this testing facility by Tessolve changes that once and for all." GDS2 files are a final output in the IC design cycle. "Test and product engineering is one of the key components in the silicon supply chain. This facility, which is fully equipped to provide world class and cost effective solutions for test development, failure analysis and reliability testing, will allow semiconductor companies to go beyond GDS2 for the first time in India," he added. The failure-analysis facility will start this September onwards. Tessolve has brought in an expert from Singapore.

The company has a good, global customer base, including Chartered, Alliance Semiconductor, Credence, TI, Insilica, Wipro, Beceem, etc. The CEO said Tessolve had created a lot of awareness in the country, since its establishment last year. "For instance, 90nm technology is difficult to debug. It makes more sense to sit next to the designer during that process," he added. Tessolve will have the failure-analysis and qualification facilities in place over the next six months.

Ashok Belani, member, board of directors, and co-founder, Tessolve, added that if India had to come up to the next level, product test and engineering services has to be made available locally to the design houses. Though some expertise is available within some large companies, nothing else was available in India till now. V. Veerappan, vice president, operations, spotlighted that companies in India and elsewhere were now looking at Tessolve as a value addition. "Hopefully, this will take India into the manufacturing domain."