Motorola, the US electronics-to-telecom giant, is working on several stand-alone top-end very large scale integration IC (integrated circuit) design projects at its hardware design centre in Gurgaon, near here. This was revealed by Mario Rivas, vice-president and general manager, wireless subscriber systems group, semiconductor products sector of the $29 billion major.
He, however, refused to reveal the exact nature of the projects. The design centre is one of the few such facilities of Motorola world-wide and is comparable to similar centres of the Chicago (US)-based company's in Europe, the US, Israel, Singapore, China, Brazil, Ireland and Japan. The company set up the VLSI centre in Gurgaon in May this year.
The establishment of the design centre was part of an increase in investment plans by Motorola, which saw its investments rising from $50 million to $100 million. The design centre will work in conjunction with Motorola's global design teams on future products for wireless _ cellular, wireless in local loop and radio products _ markets across the world.
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Meanwhile, Motorola announced setting up an `Embedded Controller Application Centre' at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani in Rajasthan. The centre is estimated to cost Motorola some $50,000 and in the years to come will help supply it top notch professionals, Rivas said.
"Embedded controllers represent the DigitalDNA of electronic products everywhere. The emergence of exciting opportunities in the embedded marketplace has created a need for a world class embedded controller application centre in India. This (BITS) application centre will be used extensively by students, members of faculty and R&D professionals in the field of embedded controllers and their applications," Rivas added.
The Gurgaon IC design facility is expected take advantage of India's high-end software and design talents. For instance, engineers with Motorola India Electronics India Ltd _ the US company's software development centre at Bangalore _ have developed telecom software for cellular base (radio) stations and ground control software for Iridium, a Motorola-led global mobile personal communication system.
While announcing the setting up of the centre in May, Fred Shalpak, senior vice president and general manager of wireless subscriber systems group, has said: "Our decision was also determined by the fact that India has a vast reservoir of the best engineering talent in the world. We expect to have over 40 VLSI design engineers working at this centre by the end of this year," Shalpak added.
Motorola's wireless subscriber systems group is part of the vendor's semiconductor products sector which develops state-of-the-art chips for the telecom market. The semiconductor products sector _ billing some $8 billion in renvnues _ is among the leading producers of embedded processors.
Motorola hopes to replicate its success with the Bangalore software development centre in the IC design centre and its second software development facility being set up in Hyderabad. The number of Motorola employees in the country is also likely to go up with fresh investments.