India poised to be a big market for semiconductor industry

India, which was a great centre for R&D and semiconductor design, is emerging to be a huge market with respect to semiconductor consumption.

The semiconductor market in the country, which is pegged at $1.6 billion in 2006, is expected to reach about $2.2 billion in 2007 and $5.5 billion by 2010, according to industry sources.

Said Biswadip (Bobby) Mitra, MD, Texas Instruments India and president of VLSI Society of India, "India has always been a great R&D site for semiconductor design. However the increase in local consumption of electronic equipment, has changed the equation now. This is a once in a generation opportunity for the semiconductor industry in the country, which is growing rapidly," he added.

He, however, said that the challenge really was to find enough number of VLSI professionals.

"Keeping this in mind, the VLSI Society of India is aggressively focusing on bringing the academia and the industry closer through a series of seminars, workshops and symposium to create 10,000 VLSI professionals by 2010," he added.

Texas Instruments is one of the few companies in the semiconductor space, which realised the importance of India as a great R&D hub and started their operations in India in 1984.

At present, the semiconductor sector in the country is dominated by about 147 companies, of which 100 are based out of Bangalore.

According to J Parthasarathy, director STPI, Karnataka, of the $24 billion IT exports from India in fiscal 2006-07, the semiconductor industry contributed $2.3 billion and is growing 40 per cent year-on-year.

He said the semiconductor industry had the potential of growing to a $40 billion market in India in the next few years.

"The local consumption of electronic equipment with a stupendous growth in the mobile wireless market in India will fuel the growth of the semiconductor industry in the country. STPI under the initiative of the Union IT Ministry is initiating steps to integrate the curriculum in various engineering colleges and universities to suit the requirement of the industry and create more VLSI engineers," he added.