Flextronics inaugurates notebook R&D facility in Banciao, Taiwan

SINGAPORE: Flextronics has launched a strategic facility in Banciao, Taiwan with dedicated design, R&D and supporting services for notebook computers.

This new facility expands Flextronics' existing presence in Taiwan, where the company currently has operations in Wugu and Chungli. Flextronics' Computing Segment Design Center (CSDC), located in Wugu, focuses on original design manufacturing and joint design manufacturing (ODM/JDM) products and services for OEMs of servers, storage, desktops, and other computing-related products.

Flextronics' Computing Segment Notebook Center (CSNC), located in Banciao, provides ODM/ JDM products and services for notebook OEMs. Taiwan serves as the geographic hub for R&D capabilities for Flextronics' Computing segment with expectations of employing over 1,500 engineers over the next few years.

"We are thrilled to formally announce and inaugurate our new Banciao, Taiwan R&D headquarters for our notebook products. We chose to invest in Taiwan based on the country's strong talent pipeline, computing industry focus, excellent supply chain and solid reputation for ODM services," said Sean Burke, president of Flextronics' Computing segment.

"Establishing a strong computing presence in Taiwan is a significant advantage for Flextronics and our customers, where we already serve many leading brand name OEMs. I look forward to further enhancing our customer offering for notebooks and to working with local Flextronics' suppliers, employees and partners on many shared successes."

Products designed in Flextronics' Taiwan facility will be manufactured by Flextronics using its global scale, flexibility and footprint to accommodate customer requirements around the world.

Freescale and Flextronics to deliver high-end enterprise WLAN solution

AUSTIN, USA: Freescale Semiconductor has partnered with Flextronics to create a high performance reference design for the Enterprise WLAN access point market.

Based on Freescale’s PowerQUICC II Pro MPC8377E processor, the IEEE® 802.11N access point reference design offers a comprehensive, production-ready solution which scales from 400 MHz to 800 MHz and speeds time-to-market.

The solution supports dual-band 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz concurrent operation with 3 x 3 MIMO. This functionality, together with the high performance and low-power operation of the MPC8377E processor, enables greater than 300 megabits per second throughput while meeting the requirements of IEEE802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE).

The MPC8377EWLAN 802.11N Access Point RDS showcases Flextronics’ wireless and networking product design and engineering capabilities. Complete with open source application software based on Linux technology, the RDS platform can serve multiple markets, including the highest growth segments of the WLAN space.

The offering provides a complete solution including software packages for small/medium business and enterprise wireless access points, which combined with the high performance of the MPC8377E device provide significant headroom for value-add services.

“Freescale selected Flextronics as one of our key partners to help us deliver reference design solutions engineered to meet the specific needs of our customers,” said Raja Tabet, vice president of Solutions Enablement Technology for Freescale's Networking & Multimedia Group. “This new solution gives our ODM and OEM customers the turnkey, production-ready solutions they need to speed time-to-market and succeed in the marketplace.”

Flextronics’ high-volume production capabilities and the expertise of its Shanghai Infrastructure Design and Engineering Center teams enable OEM customers to develop and release products to market faster with market-proven technologies. The MPC8377EWLAN is the first production-ready solution resulting from this collaboration and adds to Freescale’s portfolio of reference design solutions intended for small/medium businesses.

“We are continually focused on ways to improve our service offering to OEMs in the network and infrastructure space, and today’s announcement exemplifies our focus on developing cutting-edge products for a more competitive wireless and networking solution,” said Brent Serbin, global vice president and general manager of Flextronics Infrastructure Design and Engineering. “Freescale has a strong reputation as a leader in embedded semiconductor markets that are also served by Flextronics, which creates a great deal of synergy and enables us to leverage the benefits of our combined services and skill sets.”

MPC837x PowerQUICC II Pro
As Freescale’s highest performance PowerQUICC II Pro offering, the MPC8377E device provides the reference design with enough performance to support the advanced 802.11N wireless standard.

It consumes only 4.1 Watts when running at 800 MHz for high-performance enterprise-class solutions and can scale to 400 MHz for cost-sensitive Access Point solutions. This performance enables wireless access points offering more than 300 megabits per second, allowing for many more users per router, as well as the ability to send huge files instantaneously.

In addition to the high levels of performance it provides in the WLAN reference design, the MPC8377E is also ideal for other applications requiring ultra-high performance such as network attached storage, printing applications and networking solutions. The device includes Freescale’s SEC security engine designed for secure wireless transmission and is highly integrated to include both PCI and PCI Express® interfaces.

Freescale’s PowerQUICC II Pro processor family features exceptional integration and performance. Based on Power Architecture® technology, Freescale processors enable secure, cost-effective data storage, streaming and sharing for consumer and small/medium business markets.

The MPC8377E PowerQUICC solution accommodates the high-bandwidth requirements of video conferencing and voice-over-WLAN (VoWLAN) applications and the secure communication with encryption and VPN services necessary for data services.

MPC8377EWLAN RDS availability and pricing
The MPC8377EWLAN 802.11N Access Point reference design is a production-ready solution with FCC-Class B certification, significantly reducing time-to-market for OEM customers. It includes support for MiniPCI or MiniPCI Express WLAN modules, and scales to 800 MHz to support multiple radios.

The MPC8377EWLAN RDS comes with source code and Linux BSP technology, application-level software, GUI interfaces and more. The solution is available now from Freescale and its authorized distribution channels. The per-unit cost of the reference design is a suggested resale price of $449 (USD).

MPC837x PowerQUICC II Pro pricing and availability
Samples of the MPC837x device are available now. Suggested retail pricing in 10K quantities for non-encrypted versions of the MPC837x family ranges from $23-$30.

NXP India's Rajeev Mehtani on top trends in global/Indian electronics and semicon!

When a new year approaches, we start analyzing the year gone by and try to gauge what could happen in the coming year. This really holds true, as far as the technology industry is concerned.

It's been a week since I've been mulling over these myself, especially, pondering over developments in the global semiconductor and electronics industries, as well as what could happen in India during 2009. Well, lots will happen, and I can't wait for the new year to start!

I caught up with Rajeev Mehtani, vice president and managing director, NXP Semiconductors, India, and discussed in depth about the trends for 2009. Here's a look at that discussion.

INDIA -- ELECTRONICS & SEMICONDUCTORS

1. The DTH story will continue to increase in India with companies such as Tata Sky, DISH TV, BIG TV, etc., gaining market share. Owing to these challenges, there would be significant consolidation among the cable operators. Digitalization will also be seen in 2009.

2. The slowdown will affect growth across all sectors. Our view is that LCD TVs as well as STBs will continue to grow.

3. The year 2009 will witness e-commerce revolution and the RFID sector will grow at a 40-50 percent clip. The government has been sponsoring a lot of projects, which include RFID in the metros, e-passport cards and national ID cards. By mid-2009, we can expect a mass deployment of these projects as well as micro payments.

4. Manufacturing in India will continue to grow; EMS or OEMs, such as Samsung, Nokia, Flextronics, etc.

5. There could be a move from services to products in electronics and semiconductor spaces. The number of funded startups has grown significantly over the last years and more and more ideas are coming on the table.

6. The solar/PV sector will grow in India. High entry cost of capital for panels will be a barrier for this sector. Government enhancement is necessary. India will be different than other countries as people won't push energy back into the grid; it will be used more for household consumption. The India grid is unstable. Tracking it requires a lot of expensive electronic switching. Solar deployment could be at the micro level, and also community level, where it makes more sense.

7. The startups in India are mostly Web 2.0 based, although there aren't many hardware startups.

GLOBAL -- ELECTRONICS & SEMICONDUCTORS

1. The semiconductor industry is truly global, That is mostly because it is a very expensive industry.

2. Things are a bit murky in the semiconductor industry. It would probably be dipping 10-15 percent next year.

3. Globally, energy management and home automation will start to take off in 2009. Satellite broadcasters will also continue to gain more strength.

4. On a worldwide scale, 3G will win. You will have 3G phones, and you'd add LTE to those. India is slightly different. Only 20 percent of Indian households are ready for broadband access. In India, WiMAX could be a way to have wireless broadband at home.

5. Industries moving to 300mm fabs will be making up only 20-25pc of the market. Not many need 45nm or 40nm chips. People will question any major capex, until there's a big return and wait for recession to end. The bright spot is solar!

6. The fabless strategy would be the only way to go forward. While MNCs with fabless strategy are present in India, Indian startups in this space are quite few.

India's growing might in global semicon

It is no longer a secret that India is fast becoming the world’s destination, and increasingly the source too, for semiconductors. India also shows the most rapid growth potential among the BRIC countries.

Speaking at the recently held International Electronics Forum (IEF) 2008 at Dubai, organized by Future Horizons, S.Janakiraman, the outgoing Chairman - India Semiconductor Association, and President & CEO – R&D services, MindTree Ltd, touched upon India's growing might as a being the third largest country in terms of purchasing power parity, as well as its growing presence in the global semiconductor industry.

It is no surprise that the current market drivers in India happen to be mobile phone services, IT services/BPO, automobiles and IT hardware. Add to these are the facts that India is very strong in design tools, system architecture and VLSI design, has quite strong IP protection laws, and is quite strong in concept/innovation as far as the semiconductor industry is concerned.

Testing and packaging are in the nascent stage. While India lacks a semicon wafer fab, as of now, there have been several announcements regarding solar fabs by leading firms such as Videocon, Moser Baer, Reliance, etc.

In the electronics manufacturing domain, India's strength lies in hardware, embedded software and industrial design, OEMs, component distribution (includes semiconductor and box build), and end user/distribution channel, as well as more than moderate strength in product design and manufacturing (ODM, EMS).

India is likely to witness $363 billion of equipment consumption and $155 billion of domestic production by 2015. India’s electronic equipment consumption in 2005 was 1.8 percent. It is likely to grow to 5.5 percent in 2010 and 11 percent in 2015, as per a joint study conducted by the ISA and Frost & Sullivan.

The Indian semiconductor TAM (total available market) revenue is likely to grow by 2.5 times while the TM (total market) is likely to double revenues in 2009. The TAM is likely to grow at a CAGR of 35.8 percent and the TM is likely to grow at a CAGR of 26.7 percent, respectively, during the period 2006-09.

Telecom, and IT and office automation are currently the leading segments in both TM and TAM. Consumer segment occupies the third fastest growing area in the TM, while the industrial segment is the third fastest growing area in the TAM.

The major semiconductor categories include microprocessors, analog, memory, discrete and ASIC, while the major end use products include mobile handsets, BTS, desktops, notebooks, set-top boxes and CRT TVs.

Emerging base of EMS firms
India is also becoming an emerging base of EMS companies, thereby completing the electronics ecosystem. Five of the top 15 EMS companies globally have set up their manufacturing facilities in India. These include Celestica, Elcoteq, Flextronics, Jabil Circuit and Solectron. Two other large companies are in the process of setting up plants -- Hon Hai Precision Industry and Sanmina-SCI.

Nokia has set up its manufacturing facility as well. It has invested $210 million in the plant since January 2006. The India plant has set another benchmark of achieving the fastest ramp up across all Nokia facilities worldwide. Currently, approximately 50 percent of the production from the plant is consumed domestically and the rest is exported to other countries.

Indian embedded design industry
The Indian embedded design industry has been going from strength to strength. The recent IDC-ISA report puts revenues from India's VLSI, board design and embedded software industry to grow to $10.96bn by 2010 from the current $6.08bn in 2007.

As of 2007, embedded has 81.1 percent share, hardware board design 6.3 percent; and VLSI design 12.3 percent, respectively.Source: ISA.

The challenges and focus areas for the embedded design industry include manpower -- focusing on increasing productivity, creating readily deployable engineering workforce, and focusing on developing high-end skills.

Another area India is working on is moving up the semiconductor value chain. India is now focusing on end-to-end product development, investing in IP development, developing India specific products, and partnering with OEMs to understand the market needs.

The challenge is posed by the cost structure. India needs to better address cost management, i.e., increasing infrastructure and salary costs, as well as managing the dollar's impact.

India design inside
Several global products have been now developed out of India. Some recent examples are: Harita Infoserve Ltd is developing interior parts and conducting computer tests on components for General Motors Corp.

Next, Ittiam’s videophone design will become almost entirely an India story: part of the chip, the product design, the software and, finally, the manufacturing also done here. Plexion Technologies has worked on the interior design and windows for a DaimlerChrysler (DCX) bus.

Quasar Innovations designed and developed a dual SIM card — PTL910 mobile phone for Primus, to be launched in the European market. The mobile phone allows the user to have SIM cards from Primus for two countries, with the phone automatically choosing the correct SIM depending on the user’s location.

Finally, MindTree itself has designed a feature rich satellite handset with mobile handset form factor for a European company.

Attractive semicon policy
India's semiconductor policy is likely to attract investments of over $10bn. The government of India will bear 20 percent of the capital expenditure during the first 10 years for units located inside SEZs and 25 percent for those outside.

For semiconductor manufacturing (wafer fabs) plants, the policy proposes a minimum investment of $625mn. The same for ancillary plants would be $250mn.

The government's participation in the projects would be limited to 26 percent of the equity portion. The key benefit here is the grant of the SEZ status.

India’s evolving ecosystem is driven by the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) opportunity. Tata Motors announced the now famous Nano -- the Rs. 1 lakh (sub $2500) car -– said to be the world's cheapest car. This has been indigenously developed in India, for India, by Tata Motors.

Nano has passed all mandatory crash tests and Euro IV norms. It is likely to be commercially launched in the second half of 2008.

All of these make India the most happening semiconductor and electronics destination. Don't be surprised if companies not having an India strategy in place miss out on the action!