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Texas Instruments sets up 3G wireless centre in Bangalore

Fakir Chand in Bangalore

Texas Instruments India Ltd, the wholly owned subsidiary of the $13.5-billion US-based semi-conductor major, is moving into the wireless area in a big way for a pie of the multi-billion dollar global communications and Internet industry.

Being a pioneer in setting up its 100 per cent export-oriented software technology park in India 15 years ago, TIL is set to 'reinvent the wheel' again by establishing its third generation (3G) wireless centre in Bangalore to focus on developing integrated hardware and software solutions, which will power the upcoming mobile and Internet devices.

Announcing the launch of the 3G centre in Bangalore on Thursday, TIL's newly appointed managing director Biswadip (Bobby) Mitra said it would build both the digital signal processing (DSP) software, including infrastructure and applications) as well as the hardware, viz., integrated DSP platform for the booming wireless market.

"TIL will also go for strategic partnership with key vendors to develop and deploy solutions, optimised for the Open Multimedia Applications Platform, chosen for 3G wireless appliances by global vendors such as Nokia, Ericsson, Sony, Microsoft, Symbian, Handspring, and others as it was rapidly becoming a de facto industry standard for wireless handsets."

With a view to having the first-mover advantage in the wireless market, which is projected to have over a billion mobile subscribers by 2002, the Rs 690-million TIL will leverage its leadership in the DSP and Analog chips for the market of convergence technologies.

"Almost 2 out of 3 cellular phones the world over are powered by an integrated single-chip solution with TI's DSPs, micro-controllers, and memories. The centre will build integrated solutions for end-equipment such as Internet audio players, cable modems, digital subscriber lines, IP telephony, and digital still cameras," Mitra asserted.

In the first year of the operations, the centre will have a 50-member team that will take up the design and development of the solutions as projects, including applications in the imaging area and Bluetooth technologies for wireless application protocols (WAP) and web-enabled devices.

According to a company official, the fresh investments will be in addition to the $25 million TI had invested so far in the Indian facility during the last 15 years. The expansion programme will facilitate the company to double its manpower from the present 500 employees.

As a part of its plans, the R&D centre is already working with Nokia and Ericsson in the 2.5G and 3G communication areas. The company is also testing its cable modem in India.

Though the subsidiary is a cost centre, it is estimated to nearly double its turnover to Rs 1.2 billion by the end of the current financial year.

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