The Hindu Business Line : Texas Instruments gearing up to tap chip market

Twenty-one years after it set up its overseas research and development base in Bangalore, Texas Instruments is now gearing up to tap the Indian semiconductor market.

"India is a `once in a generation' opportunity for us," Mr Bobby Mitra, Managing Director, Texas Instruments India Pvt Ltd, told a press conference announcing the ninth edition of the company's annual developers meet to be held later this week.

The rapidly growing wireless, telecom, entertainment, medical and automotive electronics sectors are fuelling the demand for semiconductors in India and TI would focus on all these areas, Mr Mitra said.

Frost and Sullivan estimated that the Indian semiconductor market at $1.14 billion in 2005, which is clocking a 30 per cent annual growth, and is expected to touch $2.3 billon in 2007 and $36 billion by 2015.

On the delay in the company's strategy to address the Indian market, Mr Mitra said, "It is still a small market, but we are addressing it at a right time. There has been a right amount of focus earlier and we are just upping the focus now and building the foundation for future".

"However," he said, "India will continue to be the R&D centre for TI". The company, which has some 1,400 engineers in India, recently opened an additional R&D centre in Chennai to focus on wireless arena.

Mr Arun Jain, the recently appointed Director for Marketing and Sales in India, said the market was positioned to take off and TI sees an exponential growth in the industrial, consumer and wireless markets.

TI is expanding its footprint in India by expanding its sales offices and partner network. At present, the company has four offices in India, including R&D centres in Bangalore and Chennai. The company also has four distributors.

Annual developers meet

The 9th Texas Instruments Developer Conference (TIDC), being organised in Bangalore on November 30 and December 1, expects to showcase the applications built around TI's technology platform by its partners.

Over 1,000 developers, 50 partner companies are expected to participate in the conference, which provides a platform for collaboration across a range of technologies, said Mr Sham Banerji, head of software development, TI India.

TIDC will include a demonstration of new applications across emerging hi-growth industries.