Bengal red carpet for chip units

West Bengal could move up the value chain and become a chip fabrication hub in the future.

According to Debesh Das, the state IT minister, West Bengal is trying to work out ways to attract various chip designing companies to set up offices in West Bengal's 'India Design Centre', the 1.5 acre, Rs 400 crore project scheduled to be operational by 2008.

The West Bengal government has already invited chip giants such as Intel, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Cadence, Synopsis and Sequence to work at the centre.

According to Poornima Shenoy, India Semiconductor Association, "One of the primary reasons for any chip designing company to set up base in West Bengal would be availability of talent. With institutes like Jadavpur, Shibpur, Kharagpur, and Durgapur, there is no dearth of computer science and electrical science graduates in the state, and that alone would attract companies to set up base here."

"The Indian Design Centre would throw open employment opportunities for close to 7500 professionally qualified people," Das added.

In the present scenario, there are close to 130 chip design centres in India of which 67 per cent are based in Bangalore.

To attract chip designing companies and semi-conductor manufacturers to set up offices in Kolkata, the state government would offer the companies a subsidy to train their employees at the training institute.

"Moreover, since the designing tools are expensive, the state government would allow the companies to use the tools on rent," Das said.

The Indian Design Centre would be a 18-storey building. The ground floor would have a laboratory while the first and second floors would have the training centres. All companies would be accommodated on the fourth floor and above.