Indian semiconductor companies upgrade engineering skills

Experienced chip designers are becoming an increasingly scarce commodity, as vendors outsource more work to the Indian semiconductor industry. "There is a dearth of design engineers with a combination of electronic-design skills and an adequate knowledge of the latest tools," says G Satish

Kumar of Mentor Graphics Sales and Services. To plug the gap, companies such as ATI, Magma, Mentor Graphics, and TI are taking the initiative to upgrade the skills and knowledge of local design engineers. Collectively, the companies spend more than $1 million a year—either in the form of monetary contributions for education or by providing software and tools for design labs in universities. "There is an acute shortage of VLSI front- and back-end-design talent," says Dasaradha R Gude, managing director at ATI Technologies India. Consequently, ATI is collaborating with Hyderbad-based Veda IIT on diploma and master's degree programs for design engineers. "We have trained more than 1000 engineers on the entire Magma flow," comments Anand Anandkumar, managing director of Magma Design Automation India. "Talent that can develop EDA tools and analog ICs is in short supply."

"There is a huge gap between what the universities teach and what the industry requires," confirms Professor K Jayaraman, chief mentor at CICT Pvt Ltd, adding that universities lack the resources for developing labs or to invest in software tools. "The lack of a coordinating body is a problem," says CP Ravikumar, PhD, secretary of the VLSI Society of India. To bridge this divide, the ISA (India Semiconductor Association) and VSA (VLSI Society of India) have launched a pilot program with Belgaum-headquartered VTU (Vishvesvaraya Technological University). "The initiative encompasses research, curriculum, and faculty development, EDA-tool support and ecosystem creation," says Poornima Shenoy, president of ISA. The pilot program will create opportunities for greater industry-academia interaction, create an industry-oriented curriculum, and facilitate the infrastructure to support the programs.

ATI Technologies , www.ati.com .

Magma Design Automation , www.magma-da.com .

Mentor Graphics , www.mentor.com .

Texas Instruments , www.ti.com .