True innovation from India

Indian engineers are well recognized for their engineering expertise that powers the high technology world of semiconductors. There is plenty of evidence that this is the case: Look at the list of paper presenters at an IEEE technology conference, look at the ethnic diversity in Silicon Valley, look at the ethnic profile of faculty at your favorite tier 1 electrical engineering school.

Indeed, Indians are everywhere, and Indian engineers have made significant contributions to advance leading edge innovative work in the semiconductor industry. This evolution did not stop with engineering; it has quickly spread into marketing, an area of the corporate and entrepreneurial setting where we commonly see well-rounded engineers who have transitioned their skills in engineering and close understanding of their products to more market- and business-driven roles. People of Indian origin started rising up the management ladders as their leadership skills were recognized. Indian entrepreneurs became common, driving innovation in the growth phases in the last couple of decades. Today, we have Indians in top ranking positions in global chip companies.

It’s no surprise then that India has become a popular destination for R&D centers for startups and multi-national companies (MNCs). Credit goes to the likes of Wipro that creatively provided business models for companies in Europe, the United States, and Japan. At the same time, some MNCs boldly opened offices in India. Fast forward a few decades, and we now rarely find large MNCs that do not have a presence here or appear on the customer list of the Indian design services firms.

Take California-based Broadcom Corp., for example, one of the world’s largest fabless semiconductor companies and the company I work for in our Bangalore facility. With $4.66 billion in 2008 revenue, Broadcom has become a Fortune 500 company—a huge accomplishment for a company this young (the company was founded in 1991, and went public in 1998). At Broadcom we take pride in the high value, leading edge technology we provide, which has established us as a leader in communications and networking markets, where we provide a broad range of solutions for consumer and business infrastructure devices and equipment – from mobile phones to set top boxes to wireless routers. Early on, Broadcom recognized the talent pool in India and made one of its earliest corporate acquisitions in the country. In 1999, Broadcom acquired Armedia Inc., an Indian start-up working on high definition video solutions. This was a starting point for Broadcom India, which today has become an important resource to the company, with our India team working on leading edge projects for Broadcom’s world markets and top tier customers.
Building our teams through both organic hiring and several acquisitions, Broadcom India now supports all of the company’s business units and engages in a full range of engineering initiatives. Thanks to high speed advanced communications, our India teams can interact and collaborate seamlessly with colleagues around the globe.
The results have been gratifying, with highly innovative work coming from our India teams as measured, in part, by our many patent applications and a number of “firsts”. For example, Broadcom’s first flip chip consumer design and the first 65nm SOC for enterprise networking were done in India.

Much of the company’s innovative work comes out of our India Design Center in Bangalore. The teams at the Center are responsible for the architecture, design and verification and the support of the IPs they build. We also task our India teams to “own” complete product development for a number of markets, which requires involvement in early definitions and architecture to final chip testing for products that go to tier-1 customers across Asia, Europe and the U.S.

All this did not come easy or get built overnight. Within Broadcom, we had to earn the respect and confidence that our India teams could deliver to the very highest standards expected by our colleagues in labs and design centers around the globe. The need to meet global engineering standards has been a very good way to get the best out of our extremely talented India workforce. We focused on improvements in certain skill sets through ongoing training and learning, which required time and investment. And even with advanced communications systems, our India team has traveled extensively to stay in close touch with colleagues around the world.

We are gratified by the successes of our India team, and the important contributions that we have made—and continue to make—as all of us at Broadcom, here in India and globally, seek to make Broadcom the world’s leading communications semiconductor company.


Author Information
Rajiv Kapur is the Managing Director of Broadcom India.

Sandeep Bhatia is the Engineering Director of Broadcom India.