Microchip to invest $65 mn in India

Leading provider of microcontrollers and analog chip maker Microchip Technology will invest $65 million in its India development centre over the next five years.

Leading provider of microcontrollers and analog chip maker Microchip Technology will invest $65 million (Rs.2.85 billion) in its India development centre over the next five years and hire about 300 more engineers, the company said in Bangalore.

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“We have set up a new facility to work on integrated circuit (IC) development, microcontroller development tools and corporate information systems,” Microchip vice-president Ganesh Moorthy said in a statement issued in Bangalore on late Friday.

The $1 billion Arizona-based US firm designs embedded control solutions for consumer, automotive, office-automation, communications and industrial-control markets worldwide.

“The India centre will play a major role in developing eight bit, 16 bit and 32 bit microcontrollers and digital signal controllers. We have delivered many innovations in microcontroller and digital signal controller designs, besides digital-power and motor-control solutions," Moorthy said.

Industry analyst firm Gartner Dataquest ranked Microchip as world leader in eight bit microcontrollers in 2007. It is also the largest supplier of eight bit microcontrollers in the Indian sub-continent, according to the India Semiconductor Association.

A microcontroller is a tiny computer-like processor that makes electronic products intelligent. An average consumer uses about 100 microcontroller-enhanced products ranging from microwave, to copier and phone at workplace and remote control for television viewing at home.