The Hindu Business Line : VLSI meet to focus on chip design challenges

Our digital lifestyle will drive the need for chip designers in the country. And it is this talent that we continue to lack, regretted Mr Wim Roelandts, CEO, Xilix Inc, at the inauguration of the 20th edition of VLSI conference here.

Triple play (where you can use your Internet connection for data transfer, watch TV and also make phone calls) will boost the demand for high performance programmable solutions. With new sets of applications coming, the Indian market will need chips that are designed to do more. This world of complexity will depend on chip designers and experts to make digital convergence a reality, he added.

"Local consumption will be the focus of the third decade of VLSI in the country," agreed Mr Biswadip Mitra, President of VLSI Society of India (VSI) and Managing Director, Texas Instruments India.

The conference, which has the status of an IEEE conference, is expected to draw over 1,200 delegates from across India and the world. The theme of the conference is Nanometer design challenges. The primary focus is a talent pool exercise.

"We are aware of the acute talent challenge and have convened a meeting next week with heads of all the local technical universities, where the possibility of integrating VLSI into the regular engineering curriculum will be discussed," said Mr J. Parthasarathy, Director, STPI. "The industry at its current growth level will need 10-12 times the current manpower level of 65,000 engineers," he added.

The VLSI society is trying to address this through its program which attempts to add 10,000 professionals annually. Tier II and III cities were also pools of talent and should be considered, said Mr Mitra.