The coming ramp-up in electronics design, development and manufacturing parallels what happened in China nearly a decade ago. India, which has long chiefly focused on IT outsourcing and chip design services, has lagged in hardware. That, however, is about to change.
India's electronics equipment consumption, estimated at $28.2 billion in 2005, is expected to reach $363 billion by 2015. Domestic production totaled $10.99 billion in 2005 and is projected at $155 billion in 2015
Shanghai's chip output accounts for at least 60 per cent of the china's total output per year. Zhangjiang High-Tech Park, located in Shanghai's Pudong New Area, currently boasts more than 60 enterprises centred on IC business including manufacturing, research and development (R&D). Most of them are overseas-funded companies or joint ventures, according to park officials.Fabcity can be Hyderabad's own Zhangjiang High-Tech Park. With similar investment and manufacturing patterns to the shanghai park, Fab city can become manufacturing, research and development (R&D), sealing, packing and testing hub for India.
IT services and semiconductor companies are fast attracting VC funding in India. And that market is due to skyrocket. "India's digital economy is starting to develop and as it does, it will drive the local [hardware] market," Kondamoori managing director for Sandalwood Partners, said. For example, "There are big changes happening in broadband." Kondamoori noted that high-speed Internet connectivity will become a huge demand driver in the domestic IT hardware sector.
With a growing middle class that now numbers nearly 400 million people, India's electronics equipment consumption, estimated at $28.2 billion in 2005, is expected to reach $363 billion by 2015. Domestic production totaled $10.99 billion in 2005 and is projected at $155 billion in 2015, according to ISA estimates, thanks to such drivers as mobile phones, wireless equipment, set-tops and smart-card terminals. But despite recent rapid growth, India's semiconductor market still constitutes just over 1 percent of the global total.
The coming boom in equipment manufacturing is expected to benefit most of the global chip and equipment companies now in India, as well as a huge and growing pool of domestic producers of every stripe. While VLSI chip design and board design are expected to surge, the biggest hardware growth opportunity is likely to be in embedded systems.
Indian engineers, not their foreign employers, increasingly are choosing what components and microprocessor architectures to use, as well as influencing the selection of real-time operating systems and embedded development platforms.
Source: Info World , People's Daily, The Cyberabad Times
