By IANS
Bangalore : World’s leading chip designer firm ARM is expanding its India design centre to make it the largest outside Britain, a top company official said here Thursday.
“Headcount in our Bangalore facility will be doubled to 700 in the near future from 350 presently, making it the second largest design centre after our headquarters at Cambridge in Britain,” ARM chief operating officer (COO) Tudor Brown told reporters here.
For accomplishing its expansion plans, ARM had Duke of York Prince Andrew unveiling its extended design centre in India’s silicon hub, with additional capacity to accommodate more design engineers.
The $514-million British firm, formerly Advanced Risc Machines (ARM), designs processors (semiconductor chips) for advanced digital products spanning wireless, networking and consumer entertainment solutions to imaging, automotive, security and storage devices.
In partnership with about 200 global software and hardware majors, ARM delivers high-performance, low-power processors, graphics engines, physical IP (intellectual property), peripherals, software and tools to manufacture mobile devices and applications in wireless, networking, security and automotive domains.
As ARM’s fastest growing operation worldwide, the India design centre creates semiconductor IP, products and solutions for the addressable markets, besides offering services to partner firms developing software products based on its architecture.
“Our expansion plan reinforces the critical role played by India in our worldwide operations, harnessing skilled talent to develop technology solutions for the digital world,” Brown noted.
ARM Holdings Plc entered India in August 2004 after acquiring the Bangalore-based Artisan for $913 million, with 50 employees initially.
“Going forward, we see huge opportunities to grow and expand our product development, focusing on next-generation technology for advanced digital products,” Brown added.
Besides Britain and India, ARM has design and research and development (R&D) centres in France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the U.S. It invests about 25-26 percent ($120-$125 million) of its total revenue in design and R&D operations annually.
“About three billion units were shipped last year (2007) with our IP-based processors and embedded software. Of them two billion went into mobile devices and one billion were micro-controllers for industrial applications,” ARM India operation managing director Anil Gupta said.
RAM’s Indian subsidiary is also collaborating with Indian academia, including Visvesvaraya Technology University in Karnataka, Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore to groom talent and hone skills of engineering grads for a bright career in chip designing and embedded technologies.