The Hindu Business Line : India leads the charge

INFINEON India is Infineon Technologies AG's worldwide headquarters for software. The Indian centre oversees the activities of the development centres in Europe and Asia.

For Infineon, with over 6,000 of its 35,600 staff in its R&D Departments, the move was `non-trivial' says S. Surya, senior vice-president and managing director, head, corporate software.

eWorld met up with Surya for more on the move. Here goes:

"We have a strong technology portfolio with more than 37,000 patents and applications, and 46 major R&D locations world-wide. But the choice for Infineon India to be the software headquarters shows how strategic and important the region, and the centre, is to the company," he says.

Infineon India has 580 people now and expects to grow to 800 people in 18-24 months. Cumulative investments in the past six-seven years in India have exceeded 150 million euros and the software focus will continue to grow, says Surya.

Infineon, a global player in the semiconductor space, focusses on communications, automotive and memory products.

Almost the entire range of products in the market from the company, and most of those coming out in the coming months, have been contributed by the India development centre, says Surya.

"The Corporate Software Group will play a critical role in positioning Infineon as a supplier of high quality and reliable software solutions for semiconductors," he says.

Also, being headquartered in India, the group will be responsible for software strategy, execution, ensuring all global governance functions — such as quality assurance and quality standards, internal Infineon processes related to software development, the selection and support of partners, and the software portfolio.

Infineon expects its chips to be on sleeker cell-phones offering data, camera and Bluetooth facilities that could be launched in the next four-six months. Its MMI drivers for the automotive industry are also seeing traction even as opportunities are growing in the communications, automotive and memory space, says Surya.

"The total addressable market is growing for us as is the software component in our products.''

Infineon India, according to Surya, plays a key role in providing software competency in the domains of Wireless Communications (handset and infrastructure), Wireline Communications and the Automotive Industry.

It is currently engaged in developing low-level drivers, building of protocols, applications and integration of these with hardware, firmware and device drivers to enable the company to deliver complete reference designs.

The Indian centre's software contribution footprint is across all products and the Indian hardware design team has ownership for a number of key inputs, says Surya.

Worldwide, the semiconductor industry, valued at $230 billion, is growing at 28 per cent.

The Indian industry, accounting for $100 million, is growing at 60 per cent, according to the recently formed Indian Semiconductor Association (ISA).

priya@thehindu.co.in

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