INDIA Penn vFINAL DR 18/6/08 11:34 Page 13
Semiconductor India
DECADE SC 1.0 SC 2.0 SC 3.0 SC4.0 SC 5.0 SC6.0 SC 7.0
measures payback in decades.
RANK 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015 This clearly places the burden
1 Hughes TI TI NEC Intel Intel ?
of government responsibility
2 Transitron Motorola Motorola TI NEC Samsung ?
to focus on infrastructure
3 Philco Fairchild Philips Motorola Toshiba TI ?
rather than headline grabbing
4 Sylvania GE NSC Hitachi Hitachi Toshiba ?
5 TI RCA Intel Toshiba Motorola STMicro ?
projects, the most important of
6 GE Sprague NEC Fujitsu Samsung Infineon ? which is making it easy to
7 RCA Philco/Ford Hitachi Philips TI Renasas ?
business in India. This is more
8 Westinghouse Philips Fairchild Intel IBM TSMC ?
about infrastructure and
9 Motorola Transitron RCA NSC Mitsubishi Sony ?
10 Clevite Raytheon GE Matsushita Philips Philips ?
bureaucracy, and the free
Market $75.2m $1.528m $4.012mm $21,479m $144,404m $227,484m ?
movement of people and
Technology Discretes Std Logic MOS CMOS MPU SoC ?
goods than stumping up
billions of dollars in grants for
Figure 4; The changing face of the top manufacturers in the semiconductor industry ‘pork-barrel’ style, mega projects, although
some level of financial aid will be necessary
complete industry value chain, from end and US competitors in the mid 1980, the for capital intensive investments. Setting up
products to ICs, from system/chip design to mega project was ‘disappointing’ and the mechanisms that will outlive the life of any
university research and technology follow on (seven year) JESSI programme single individual government party is also
development. It has also established a only started to show demonstrable results in fundamental for success.
reputation in attracting foreign its final year of existence. It was to the
semiconductor and embedded design follow on MEDEA and MEDEA+ projects Quality of life issues are key for the
companies and is starting to develop its own that fully capitalised on the previous ten necessary ex pat community that will be
grown indigenous fabless and design years of effort thereby enabling Europe’s fundamental to help grease the wheels of
services companies. It is thus well down the chip and system industry to flourish in the success, as will a favourable import duty
path to becoming part of the global industry, global marketplace. and VAT/tax structure, if not everywhere at
but begs the fundamental question of how least in the designated ‘Free Trade Zones’
can this be capitalised upon. Likewise in Taiwan, the first ten years of and/or ‘Special Designated Areas’.
their chip investments were weak on Reliable electricity, water supplies and
The Way Forward successes, only to benefit in the late 1990s transportation are also a top priority; the
Government support is mandatory, but it is once their design and fabless semiconductor impact of not being able to keep things
vital that this is with due care and infrastructure gained traction, by ‘stealing’ running smoothly and seamlessly is
consideration. Which in turn implies a full end markets from far bigger economies, and potentially cataclysmic.
understanding of the implications behind TSMC started to capitalise on its goal to be
the chip basics above. Therein lies the first the world’s leading foundry. For companies, the real issue is simply ‘just
fundamental dilemma. Becoming a major do it’. In an industry where everyone
factor in the global semiconductor market is Success therefore requires patience and essentially uses the same design tools, cell
a long hard slog; it is a ’20 year’ execution with the outcome diagnostic, libraries and foundries, the key
programme, the first ten on which will show coming from simply doing the job right. differentiating factors are execution,
few tangible headline grabbing successes, This is a major dilemma for both companies execution and execution. This is, and
fuelling much fodder to the opposing and governments. The investments involved, always has been, the real competitive
naysayers. They will be typified a period of and payback expectations, are far shorter differentiator and lack of it is always the
sowing and nurturing the seeds for success. than the time needed for success. Most ultimate cause of eventual decline. For both
One only has to consider the situation in governments may not be in power even ten governments and industry, never set the
Europe and Taiwan to grasp this size of this years down the road, let alone the 20 it goals too low and just do it with
problem. takes for the plans to really gel. Likewise commitment and passion; if you don’t
When Europe’s chip companies decided to investors find it difficult to think beyond the believe global industry can be done, it quite
reverse their decline versus their Japanese current quarter, let alone anything that simply won’t be done.
Summer 2008 | www.semiconductor-india.com 13
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