A national-level chip design centre to primarily support projects of start-ups will come up at the Indian Institute of Technology-Hyderabad by end of 2017.
It will be first of the two or possibly three such facilities India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA), a trade body representing electronics system design and manufacturing industry in the country, proposes to establish.
The centre at IIT-H will offer required hardware as well as storage facilities and is to be established by IESA in association with the premier institution and the Central and State governments.
A special purpose vehicle will be created for the purpose, IESA chairman K. Krishnamoorthy said, adding the second facility would be set up in north India. Each of the facilities would entail an investment of Rs.35 crore. While the emphasis is on supporting start-ups, the chip design centre is also to be integrated into the curriculum for the benefits of the students too, he said.
Mr. Krishnamoorthy was interacting with presspersons on Thursday after announcing launch of IESA’s Hyderabad chapter with the support of Moschip Semiconductor Technology.
The chapter would boost electronics, hardware and semiconductor start-ups and firms in the State with the required support and information. There will a thrust on the aerospace and defence manufacturing too, a release said. Headquartered in Bengaluru, IESA has an office in Delhi and opened a chapter in Chennai. There are plans to open a chapter in Pune too. The association also run a incubation facility in Delhi for entrepreneurs in the field of electronics.
Citing non-availability of adequate capital and talent among challenges the country faced as it sought to reduce electronic imports, he said IESA had also initiated the process of setting up National ESDM Technology and Research Academy in 12 States, including Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. In December, the first in the series of such Academy was opened in Hubli, Karnataka.
Conceived on a hub and spoke model, each State would have five campuses with an estimated investment of Rs.10 crore each. The Academy, to be set up in engineering colleges, would serve as as an incubation centre for the projects of students. On the imports, he said 70-75 per cent of the electronics consumption in the country valued at $100 billion, in the current fiscal, were imported. Moschip CEO K. Ramachandra Reddy said the company would contribute to the growth of the eco-system in the region.
