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Our Bureau

Bangalore , Oct. 4

COOKSON Electronics today launched the first leg of its $5 million to 8 million expansion plan in Bangalore with the opening of its India Research Centre (IRC) at the Indian Institute of Science.

A manufacturing centre for surface mount technology (SMT) will be set up on 2 acres of land near Whitefield , its officials announced here.

Cookson India, the domestic subsidiary of the leading UK-based global supplier of materials and technology to electronics assembly and semiconductor industry, has an eight-year-old manufacturing facility at Chennai.

The Bangalore facility will mainly be for prototype and testing of its prime, high-end products related to electronics assembly and packaging, said Mr David Zerfoss, President, and Dr Bawa Singh, VP and CTO of Cookson Electronics Assembly Materials.

Cookson has signed an initial five-year lease arrangement for space at IISc's Entrepreneurship Centre. The IRC alone has an investment of $3 million to $5 million (Rs 13 crore to Rs 22 crore). It will also take up joint and sponsored research with IISc where the intellectual property will be shared. It will become a key part of the company's R&D centres, now located in the US, the UK and Japan.

The IRC will involve IISc faculty and scholars initially in four projects related to MEMS and nanotechnology, said Prof S. Mohan, CEO, Society for Innovation & Development, IISc's industry interaction arm. While it will also work on RFI tags and optical interconnections, Prof Mohan said the Rs 2-crore Entrepreneurship Centre was already home to research arms of seven other Indian and international companies.

Mr Zerfoss said Cookson's customers include Intel, IBM, Motorola, Alcatel, Philips, Tata and Samtel in a range from cellular phones, medical electronics to microwave ovens. Mr Zerfoss said the customer base was increasingly shifting from the West to Asia-Pacific, which now accounts for over 35 per cent of the group turnover.

More Stories on : New Projects | Electronics | Karnataka

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