The VAS space is not growing and flourishing as required

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The Indian semiconductor industry has been experiencing tremendous growth. In India, medical electronics, energy, security and surveillance, and industrial and automotive electronics are some of the sectors experiencing a high growth rate. And Texas Instruments has been taking initiatives to make this industry more robust. The company is focusing on this sector with products in analog, embedded processing, microcontrollers, and application processors. Dr Biswadip Mitra, MD, Texas Instruments India, has been instrumental in playing a pioneering role in creating the semiconductor ecosystem-with key partnerships with the Indian industry and the academia. With 500 US patents from India to its credit-the highest among all companies in the country-Texas Instruments India is driving analog and digital signal processing innovations for applications such as video appliances, medical electronic devices, industrial and automotive electronics, wireless handset and infrastructure, etc. In an interview, Dr Mitra shares his thoughts on the industry dynamics. Excerpts

How is Texas Instruments shaping up its business in India?
As the world goes digital, the need for analog chips will increase. This is because as long as human beings use gadgets of any kind-cell phones, camcorders, PCs, energy meters, generators, or ultrasound machines-there will be need for analog, chips. Analog, therefore, has become a more important opportunity for us than ever before. And we are indeed in a very powerful position to be able to add value to any electronic system for any application. The nice thing about analog is that it not only finds its place in large and known applications, but in many more small and unknown applications as well.

With over 40,000 products in our portfolio, out of which 17,000 are analog, we are well positioned to make a foray into the growing Indian semiconductor market. India is a very huge market with lots of potential, and we believe that its growth and success story will continue. In the near future, extremely strong infrastructure, feature-rich handsets, and multimedia phones will be in great demand in India. Not only voice, but data will also be a very important factor for India. And we are betting on it.

There is a lot of talk about green chipsets and energy efficient products. Have you taken any initiatives in this direction?
The mantra and keyword for our business is 'low power to no power'. And we are already in talks with the government and Bureau of Energy Efficiency to understand the requirements of the industry and users. We are constantly involving in manufacturing power efficient chips-analog chips. And to speak statistically, we produce around 40,000 chips among which 17,000 are high power analog chips, and also have an array of power efficient products.

Reducing system power consumption is no longer only a matter of longer battery life or reducing heat dissipation, it's an environmental concern. And we have committed teams working solely on reducing power consumption at both the chip and system levels. SmartReflex is the company's holistic approach combining a number of proprietary TI technologies to dramatically reduce both static and dynamic power throughout an application. This technology makes handsets less power hogging.

How are your products different from other similar products in the market?
As you know, we are a chip company. Our biggest differentiator is that our chip fits in every equipment and electronics. We develop analog, digital signal processing, RF, and DLP semiconductor technologies that help customers deliver consumer and industrial electronics products with greater performance, increased power efficiency, higher precision, more mobility, and better quality. So, there is a huge, comprehensive product portfolio that keeps us ahead in this business. Besides, our strong R&D back-up is also one of our key differentiators. In India, 14,000 engineers are working in our R&D center and the quality of our R&D innovation is our biggest USP.

For a country like India cost is a very critical factor. Do you keep this in mind when you launch new products in the Indian market?
As far as cost is concerned, I have a slightly different perspective. Once people in India go from unconnected to connected, they will want more features and applications. They would not be satisfied with only voice. So cost is not, either now or in the future, going to be an important factor for the Indian market. Our main focus is to make more feature-data-music-and-applications-rich handsets and products. Even in rural areas LoCosto and eCosto chip solutions are gaining popularity. With an eye toward putting mobile communications technology into the hands of more people, including the third-world countries that may have never made a phone call, we are leading the way in lowering costs by integrating large portions of wireless systems onto single-chip, high-volume digital CMOS technology.

Any message for Indian telecom community or OEMs and VAS players?
At present, VAS is a very crucial part of entire telecom industry with a huge potential. But this space is not growing and flourishing as required. This area has to become larger and broader. It is not growing at an exciting pace. This is a matter of major concern. The entire telecom community should think of how to grow beyond SMS pipe because innovation is the key to success in the VAS space. We should develop a network worldwide that will develop multiple applications. OEMs, VAS players, service providers, and semiconductor manufacturers should try their level best to increase the VAS percentage because VAS is important for each and every part of telecom industry, and form a considerable portion of the total telecom revenue.

You have launched a voice engine called MOVE (modular open voice engine). How do you expect this engine to affect the VoIP market?
We have a strong position among hardware and software systems in the VoIP market, spanning from base stations to routers to CPEs. MOVE is a key component of the system software that has been made available for the first time to the broad market. MOVE enables OEMs and ODMs to use the same "componentized" software across multiple product families. The software can co-exist with other system components like audio, video, and imaging, available on end-equipments.

Arpita Prem
arpitap@cybermedia.co.in