The Hindu Business Line : Sequence Design to focus on low power consumption chips

New Delhi, Feb. 5 Sequence Design India Pvt Ltd, the US based chip design company, is looking to acquire a company with expertise in low power consumption chip design.

"To begin with, we are planning to spend between $2 million and $5 million to acquire specialised technology. Later, we would scale up the size of acquisitions to $15 million over the next 16-24 months," said Mr Vic Kulkarni, President and CEO, Sequence Design.

Special Focus

With the domestic market in the chip designing industry fragmented, the company also plans to partner with some of the design service centres based in Bangalore and Hyderabad to expand its solutions base with a special focus on the mobile computing segment.

Within the Electronic Design Automation area, the company focus has been on low power consuming chips that have applications across personal computers, cell phones, DVD players, amongst other products. Sequence also designs chips required for time accuracy in products as well as solutions for cross talk hurdles in mobiles. In response to the semi conductor policy, which the Government is slated to finalise in the coming months, Mr Kulkarni felt that alongside the Government should also pay attention to the R&D aspect of the industry.

Designing Skills

He said, "Countries such as Japan, China and Taiwan are way ahead in wafer fabrication. While these countries have an expertise in manufacturing, they lack the necessary configuration and designing skills for manufacturing the chips. India could capitalise on its engineers and science graduates, who have a very strong understanding of mathematics and physics, to meet the complex challenges of the chip designing industry, which is emerging in the country."

Sequence is headquartered in California and has operations in Europe, Japan and countries in Asia Pacific including India, China, Taiwan and Korea. At present, it designs chips for 150 companies. It has been present in the country over the last three years.