Cookson Electronics opens India R&D centre

Cookson Electronics, a US-based company, which provides basic materials used in electronic assembly processes, has opened a research and development (R&D) centre in Bangalore at an investment of $10 million. This is the company's fourth and the largest R&D centre in the world.

The centre will focus on innovative new materials, components and technologies for the electronic, manufacturing, assembly and packaging.

The research efforts will also support the company's business units like Cookson Electronics Assembly Materials, Cookson Electronics Semiconductor Products and Fernox.

The $3-billion company had initially set up a small R&D facility at the Indian Institute of Science campus in Bangalore in 2004.

Now, the R&D centre has been expanded and has moved into a 32,000-square feet facility. The R&D centre has over 50 research scientists, and the company intends to scale up the headcount to 100 scientists.

Cookson's other three R&D centres are located in the US, Japan and Singapore.

"We have employed over 50 scientists at these three centres. The Indian R&D centre is the largest for us. We wanted to work closer to our customers. More than 60 per cent of our assembly materials is derived from the Asia/Pacific region. Besides, intellectual property concerns are minimum in India," Cookson Electronics CEO Steven Corbett said on Tuesday.

The company has 36 manufacturing plants worldwide, including one in Chennai.

It caters to the electronics materials producers in telecom, consumer electronics, power and semiconductors.