Xilinx to focus on Hyd centre

US-based chip design company, Xilinx, is planning to scale up operations at its India development centre here at Hyderabad with product-specific orientation while increasing the strength of R&D manpower to 300 from the present 90 in due course.

Disclosing this here today, Willem P Roelandts, chairman of the board of Xilinx, said after the increase in the projected number of professionals, the company's India development centre, with 10 per cent of the company's total manpower, would become its largest facility outside the US. He said Xilinx came to India not because of the availability of low-cost manpower but because of the fact that a lot of designing activity was happening here.

"When we want to be a global player we have to deploy our resources globally. This is our strategy," Roelandts told the media. But he did not spell out any numbers on the investment front.

According to him, the prospects in the Asia Pacific region, which accounts for 25 per cent of the company's business, is looking bright and expects further growth in semiconductor manufacturing operations, the principal source of revenue to Xilinx.

While Japan alone constitutes 15 per cent of the company's total revenues in this region, the rest of the region too has grown to contribute 10 per cent to its business from 3 per cent five years ago.

With high-end and more efficient technologies getting wider applications and utility, the semiconductor industry is driving towards 65 nanometer technologies, he said.

He also disclosed that the venture capital arm of the company had recently committed to invest in the US technology company, Coral, but said the exact size of the investment was yet to be finalised.