Xilinx to expand India center

HYDERABAD: Xilinx Inc., supplier of programmable chips, has decided to increase the manpower staff in its Indian Development Center (IDC) from the present 30 to 300 in the next couple of years. Xilinx operates its IDC(India Development Center) unit in collaboration with CMC in Hyderabad and has plans to acquire a company to expand its operations.

On his visit to mark the one-year anniversary of the company's operations, Xilinx CEO and president Willem P Roelandts said, "The IDC currently has 30 engineers and we are looking at increasing this to 300 in the future. We also have successfully created 12 IP cores from the Hyderabad center signifying the high-end R&D work being done from India. We may not rule out the possibility of acquiring a company for its technology and know-how in this sector to further our activities."

IP cores are pre-defined hardware design modules that customers can use to reduce their design efforts, lower costs and perform a specific function. "We at the Indian center cover the entire product development, including product design, verification, and testing. These chips are used by both Indian customers and globally too," said Xilinx-CMC IDC MD, Akshya Prakash.

Foreseeing the future of the semiconductor industry, Roelandts said, "Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) will take over the market share of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASCIs) as FPGAs have the flexibility of changing functions as per the needs and cost less as well. The time to take to design these chips is also relatively less."

"India is a good place for designing because of the talent pool. But for business development it is not so good a market," he added.

The $1.4 billion company has facilities in Colorado, New Mexico, Ireland and Scotland. With a customer base of 7,500 and over 200 IP cores, Xilinx chips are used in various consumer electronics, aerospace and defense industry. The company's Indian customers include Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO).