• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

V. Rishi Kumar

HYDERABAD, June 23

THE $6.3-billion semiconductor major, STMicroelectronics, is bullish on the system on chip (SoC) design space and foresees huge potential for smartcard applications in the subcontinent and the Asia Pacific region.

The Country Head and Director of STMicroelectronics, Mr Pradeep Kumar, told Business Line that the company has grown significantly over the years in India and is in the process of expanding its research and development operations in a new facility located in Noida.

This will see addition of a few hundred more techies in the company up from a little over 1,000 now.

Detailing the potential of the semiconductor industry, which is generally cyclic in nature, Mr Kumar said: "Even as we are witnessing a slight downturn now, there is huge opportunity for SoC design work and smartcard application in India. With various States and the Centre looking at smartcard applications, we see tremendous potential for growth in this space particularly in the R&D. With most of the major corporations looking at cost cuts in R&D work, India seems to have become a favoured destination for SoC design."

The Indian semiconductor industry started off lethargically but post-liberalisation, things have begun to look up.

The technical and analytical knowledge available here has been a distinguishing factor and this has resulted in increased investments in R&D in the country.

Vendors will continue to explore outsourcing opportunities to sustain competitiveness.

"This is also one of the reasons we will add about 500 people by the end of this year in the new facility," Mr Kumar said.

As we head towards a convergent world, the scope and application of semiconductors have increased significantly covering video games, televisions, audio-video applications, microwaves, cellular phones, personal digital assistants and a host of others.

This means more design work to integrate applications.

STMicro is a leading supplier of analog ICs and MPEG-2 decoder ICs, and is ranked number two in non-volatile memories overall and a leader in flash memory.

The company's products are manufactured and designed using a broad range of fabrication processes and proprietary design standards.

New tech for efficient silicon light emission

HYDERABAD: STMicroelectronics has announced details of a new technology that allows silicon-based light emitters to match the efficiency of traditional light-emitting compound semiconductor materials such as gallium arsenide (GaAs).

This opens up many potential applications in which optical and electrical functions are combined on a single silicon chip.

This was previously not possible because though silicon is ideal for building memories, microprocessors and other complex circuits, it could not be made to act as an efficient light emitter.

Mr Gianguido Rizzotto, Director, Corporate Technology R&D, said: "The ability to combine optical and electronic processing on the same chip presents enormous opportunities for ST to be the first to develop many new types of semiconductor products, especially as the technology is compatible with existing volume production process flows and equipment.

"We have already identified a number of promising applications and key manufacturing issues have already been solved so that the technology can be rapidly moved into production."

The company's new silicon-based light emitting technology sets a world record for efficiency.

It is based on an innovative structure in which ions of rare-earth metals such as erbium or cerium are implanted in a layer of silicon rich oxide (SRO), i.e. silicon dioxide enriched with silicon nanocrystals of 1-2 nm diameter.

The quantum efficiencies achieved are about 100 times better than has previously been possible with silicon and are, for the first time, comparable to those obtained from GaAs and other compound semiconductors traditionally used to make light-emitting diodes (LEDs), the company said.

The frequency of the emitted light depends on the choice of rare-earth and ST has patented key techniques for implanting the rare-earth ions into the silicon.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
Tata Tele to add 12 more cell sites in Karnataka

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line