Embedded Vision Alliance (EVA) is born!

The Embedded Vision Alliance is born! Over 15 leading technology companies, including some really big names in semiconductors, have come together in Oakland, USA, to ‘ speed the adoption of computer vision capabilities in electronic products’.

BDTI, Xilinx, and IMS Research initiated the Embedded Vision Alliance (EVA) and are being joined by Analog Devices, Apical, Avnet Electronics Marketing, CEVA, CogniVue, Freescale, National Instruments, NVIDIA, Texas Instruments, Tokyo Electron Device, MathWorks, Ximea, and XMOS as founding members.

According to a release, the ability of machines to see and understand their environments—what we call “embedded vision”—promises to transform the electronics industry with products that are more intelligent and aware of their environments, and to create significant new markets for electronic equipment and components.

This new consortium, called the Embedded Vision Alliance, will enable the proliferation of embedded vision technology by providing design engineers with information, practical know-how, and industry standards.

While the participants in this Alliance need to be congratulated for their foresight, one wonders what took them so long!

Also, I do not see any Indian company in the list, although, the embedded systems and software industry here is quite large. Names, such as Ittiam, Tata Elxsi, etc., should be part of this Alliance, but they are absent, as of now!

Now, the EVA’s commitment is to vision technology and enabling customers to develop the industry’s most innovative hardware, development tools and software to make vision application development easier. One of the founders has commented that embedded vision will be used on automobiles to prevent accidents and to security cameras to prevent crimes. Should this happen, embedded vision will surely proliferate across a multitude of markets! We are all waiting really patiently for such days!

No real fun being at DAC or ESC! Seriously!!

The 48th Design Automation Conference (DAC) kicks off in about a month’s time in San Diego, California, USA. I have been flooded with invites. There’s also an Embedded Systems Conference starting tomorrow, in San Jose. However, I will give both of the events a miss! Why? Simply because of one fact! The EDA industry has stopped surprising me! And, so has the embedded systems industry!!

I an very well aware of the changing and ‘challenging’ trends in the global semiconductor industry. I should also add that I do have at least some knowledge of the global EDA industry in 2010 and its expectations for 2011.

I am aware of the fact that product lifecycle management involves reducing the time-to-market cycles for new product introduction. Industry folks have, time and again, apprised me of the fact that there is a need to bridge the gap between software and hardware – and growing the IT and VLSI industries.

Cadence, for instance, will share a new technology that addresses some of the toughest challenges detailed in the EDA360 vision at ESC 2011. For how long will the challenges be met? Synopsys seems to be raking in the dollars, year after year. Mentor, despite its ‘current issues’, has been doing fairly well. So, what’s new over here?

In embedded, it is very well known globally, that India is an emerging leader. Otherwise, there is hardly any electronics or semiconductor related manufacturing happening in India, despite the best efforts of the ISA.

So, why isn’t all of this being viewed as industry growth? Maybe, you have all the answers! I will only try to sound more optimistic, without creating additional pain!

Almost all of the new techniques and technologies to be announced at either conference, will or already have made their way to India. Or, the companies using them are not allowed to speak about them, at best!

SFO – India's leading ODM player!

Thanks to Soni Saran Singh, executive director, NMTronics India Pvt Ltd, I was able to attend a ‘Global Supplier Meet’ at The NeST Group, Kochi, who’s flagship company, SFO Technologies is India’s number 1 ODM player.

I first heard of the NeST group when I was last in Kochi, covering the Photonics event organized by Cochin University of Science & Technology. Today, I had a full introduction! The NeST group started operations in 1991. Now, it is a $220 million dollar company, and well, India’s premier ODM player!

More later 😉

Top 10 Indian embedded companies!

It has been over two years since I wrote the piece — Top 10 embedded companies in India! It has been the most read, and by far, the most commented.  Now, it is time to do a review, or, more suitably, a recap!

First, who are the top 10 (Indian) embedded systems and software companies in India? My list, in no particular order, would read something like this:

1. Ittiam
2. Sasken
3. CMC
4. C-DAC
5. L&T EmSyS
6. ProcSys
7. eInfochips
8. Mistral
9. iWave Systems/Global Edge
10. Vayavya Labs

There are several firms in Pune and Hyderabad, who probably deserve a name.  There may be some folks may not agree with this list, but I would go with these, for now. The next change could be two years down the road!

Some may even question the presence of CMC and C-DAC in this list. However, CMC has well over 30+ years of extensive experience in providing consulting, design and development services and testing services in real-time systems.

C-DAC has capabilities in high-performance computing as well as grid computing. It also has unit focusing on professional electronics, including embedded and VLSI products.

Ittiam and Sasken remain in the top 5 category. ProcSys is a new entrant, besides iWave, Global Edge and Vayavya Labs.

Now, may I know if you have any doubts, as well as moves, additions and/or changes (MAC)? 😉

Is the Indian semicon industry losing the plot?

Every time I see a new electronics or related segment being talked about in India — be it medical electronics/healthcare, RFID and smart cards, or for that matter, telecom, why do I get this feeling that the Indian semicon industry is slowly losing the plot? One hopes not!

The Indian technology industry is talking about practically everything, except semiconductors. Yes, I know we have a great pool of designers who work in the MNCs. Also, there are plenty of Indian design services companies doing excellent work (for others?). India’s strength in embedded is folk lore. Despite all of this, we are, where we were a few years ago!

Back in 2007, I’d done a story on how there were very remote chances of having a fab in India. Back then, some industry folks expressed  optimism that the fab story was not dead! However, that story is well and truly dead and buried, as of now! Today, no one wants to talk about a fab — fine, then!

Let’s do a reality check on India’s semiconductor score-card!

So far, India has not even managed to have a small foundry, forget about having a fab! Nor has the Indian industry managed to develop, nurture and build many (or any?) fabless companies of note. Can you tell me how many Indian fabless semicon companies have come up in the past five years? How many globally known Indian semicon product start-ups are there in our country for that matter? Okay, how many Indian semicon product start-ups are there in our country?

For that matter, how many ATMP units have come up in India? I do recall some industry folks mention in the past that there will be some ATMP units happening. Where are they? Okay, who, in India, is even trying to develop IP libraries?

Even if there is some success in building electronic product companes — that is and will be limited success! Neither is there any evidence of cutting-edge R&D being done in India. Please do not mix this up with the work being done by the Indian arms of the various MNCs.

Why, I don’t even think that the industry-academia partnership has developed substantially, leave alone mature!

If medical electronics, or some other related area, were to go on and succeed in the near future, it would be counted as a success for the Indian electronics industry, and not for the Indian semicon industry! Even if this did happen and it was counted as a ‘semicon success, can anyone make a guess as to how many of the chips going into such devices would be actually made in India – by Indian firms?

I had mentioned back in Feb. 2009  that “Can the Indian semicon industry dream big? (And even buy Qimonda?)! To refresh your memory, there was a large 300mm fab up for sale in Dresden, Germany. Well, even that never happened, or well, the Indian industry did not think it to be of much importance!

Back in August 2009, there was news about Texas Instruments (TI) placing a bid of $172.5 million for buying Qimonda’s 300mm production tools from its closed DRAM fab. While this highlighted TI’s focus on building the world’s first 300mm analog fab, I can’t stop wondering: what would have happened had an Indian investor actually bought Qimonda’s fab!

Perhaps, it would be better for the Indian semicon industry to stick to its globally known strengths of providing excellent semiconductor design services and embedded design services. At least, there will be clear direction in these areas.

Of course, there exist huge opportunities in all of the areas (or gaps) that I’ve touched upon.

7 principles for bridging hardware and firmware divide: Gary Stringham

Gary Stringham, founder and president of Gary Stringham and Associates, LLC.

Embedded designers, are you having problems with the firwarre (embedded software) running on your hardware? For instance, do you wish to reduce chip respins? Or, would you like to improve on the hardware and firmware integration?

These and several related queries were answered by Gary Stringham, founder and president of Gary Stringham and Associates, LLC, USA, in an interactive session organized by the Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC), in co-operation with the US Commercial Service, Bangalore, and in association with the India Semiconductor Association (ISA).

Here are the seven principles that Stringham highlighted during his session. These principles should be of great interest to designers of embedded systems in India, and elsewhere. These are:

1. Collaborate on design.

2. Set and adhere to standards.

3. Balance the load.

4. Design for compatibility.

5. Anticipate the impacts.

6. Design for contingencies.

7. Plan ahead!

I will add some more stuff for each one of these points, time permitting.

Round-up 2009: Best of EDA, embedded systems and software, design trends

Friends, the next installment in this series on the round-up of 2009 lists my top posts across three specific fields that are very important within the semiconductor industry — electronic design automation (EDA), embedded systems and software, and some design trends. Here you go!

EDA

Synopsys on Discovery 2009, VCS2009 and CustomSIM

State of global semicon industry: Hanns Windele, Mentor

New routing tool likely to cover upcoming MCMM challenges: Hanns Windele, Mentor

Cadence’s focus — systems, low power, enterprise verification, mixed signal and advanced nodes

Zebu-Server — Enterprise-type emulator from EVE

State of the global EDA industry: Dr. Pradip Dutta, Synopsys

Mentor’s Wally Rhines on global EDA industry and challenges

Mentor’s Wally Rhines on EDA industry — II

Cadence’s Lip-Bu Tan on global semicon, EDA and Indian semicon industry

Indian EDA thought leaders can exploit opportunities from tech disruption!

EMBEDDED SYSTEMS & SOFTWARE

Top 10 embedded companies in India — By the way, this happens to be the most read article of the year!

NI LabView solves embedded and multicore problems!

Intel’s retail POS kiosk provides unique shopping experience

ISA Vision Summit 2009: Growing influence of embedded software on hardware world

MCUs are now shaping the embedded world!

Embedded electronics: Trends and opportunities in India!

Growth drivers for embedded electronics in India

DESIGN TRENDS

Microcontrollers unplugged! How to choose an MCU

Xilinx rolls out ISE Design Suite 11 for targeted design platforms!

TI’s 14-bit ADC unites speed and efficiency

ST/Freescale intro 32-bit MCUs for safety critical applications

Again, I am certain to have missed out some posts that you may have liked. If yes, please do point out. Also, it is not possible for me to select the top 10 articles for the year. If anyone of you can, I’d be very delighted.

My best wishes to you, your families and loved ones for a happy and prosperous 2010.

P.S.: The next two round-ups will be on solar photovoltaics and semiconductors. These will be added tomorrow, before I disappear for the year! 😉

Growth drivers for embedded electronics in India

The strength of India’s embedded systems and software industry is well known globally. Naturally, interest is extremely high in this area.

Keeping that in mind, the India Semiconductor Association (ISA), recently organized a conference on “Embedded Electronics: Trends and opportunities in India”, during the BangaloreIT.biz event.

Speaking on the global electronics systems design and manufacturing ecosystem, BV Naidu, chairman, ISA, estimated the global electronics industry at $1.75 trillion for 2009, and projected to reach $2 trillion in 2014. The annual growth rate has been 3 percent for 2004-09.

India lags behind in (electronics) numbers!
India’s story is starkly revealed in its numbers. While the electronics industry is the key to national growth, India is extremely small in this segment. Taking telecom/electronics hardware production as a share of GDP, China has a GDP share of 12.7 percent, while India only has 1.7 percent share.

Even smaller countries, such as Korea — 15.1 percent, Taiwan — 15.5 percent, and Israel — 23.6 percent, respectively, have much higher GDPs. The share of USA is 5.4 percent, Japan — 4.5 percent, and Germany — 8.3 percent, respectively.

India’s domestic production, excluding imports, is $10.8 billion during 2009. Consumption reached $45 billion in FY09 and the demand is likely to reach $125 billion in FY 2014. The expected domestic demand will likely grow 22 percent from 2009-2020, reaching $400 billion by 2020. Exports reached $4.4 billion in FY09, and it is likely to reach $15 billion in FY14 and $80 billion in FY20, growing at 31 percent.

The trade imbalance is projected to increase to $323 billion by 2020 as the imports of electronic products are likely to increase to 16 percent of the GDP. As a result, it is important for some Indian companies to play a major role.

It has the potential to leapfrog!
There exists a tremendous potential for India to leapfrog technologies and lead. Potential exists in several areas such as wireless, smart meters (AMI), LEDs, green energy/energy efficiency, affordable devices/telemedicine, digital classrooms/virtual classrooms for education, digitization in terms of electronic society/unique ID/TV, radio, etc., integrated surveillance systems, and low-cost zero emission cars.

Touching on the VLSI/electronics ecosystem, Bangalore itself is home to over 90 companies in VLSI and embedded. However, most of these are arms of MNCs. High-tech manufacturing does not exist, as yet. However, the solar PV industry has been attractive recently, and high-tech manufacturing is likely to grow there. The silicon fab, however, may take some more time.

Within the Indian electronic system design industry, there are companies such as Ittiam, SemIndia, etc., who focus on made in India and made for India. Naidu called upon the government to encourage the domestic manufacturing and systems companies.

In this respect, the electronic components and accessories ecosystem industry is currently moderate. It used to be 15 percent and has now grown to 35 percent. That means, 35 percent of the costs of production can be sourced and managed using components from India.

India has managed to attract some EMS companies, especially to Sriperumbudur, an industrial town in the Kanchipuram district, Tamil Nadu. However, low end products are being developed, or rather, work that is at the low end of the value chain is being done. That needs to change! Here, embedded software can play a key role.

 

Segment-wise projections for the Indian electronics industry. Source: India Semiconductor Association (ISA)

“Our local markets should provide opportunities for the local companies. Access to global markets will help us grow,” he added. He presented segment-wise projections for the Indian electronics industry up to 2020 (see table).

Embedded electronics: Trends and opportunities in India!

I know this particular topic and headline is going to get lots of page views. However, I’ve something better in mind to tell all of you, especially those having an interest in embedded systems and software in India.

The headline is actually the theme of the India Semiconductor Association’s (ISA) E3 conference, which will be held during the forthcoming BangaloreIT.biz event next week!

What’s in store? Probably lots!

In the opening session, industry thought leaders from Ittiam Systems and SemIndia will be setting the tone on design and manufacturing perspective. The second session is actually a panel discussion — to be moderated by S. Janakiraman, President and Group CEO, Product Engineering Services, MindTree. The panelists are from KPIT Cummins, National Semiconductor, Wipro and Delphi. It should be interesting!

I will add some more thoughts on the trends and opportunities in the Indian embedded systems and software industry, although, I’ve mentioned those quite a few times in the past!

India’s strength in embedded
India’s strength in embedded is two-fold — embedded design – in both hadware and software. Also India’s manufacturing demand for electronic products is growing at 13 percent CAGR as per ISA-F&S report 2008.

Design of embedded systems and software
India is emerging as the chip design center for most global companies. There are three types of embedded activities currently happening in India. These are:

* Embedded products designed, developed and manufactured by Indian companies for local markets or for exports — such as local product companies.
* Design projects executed by Indian design services companies for global companies — such as Wipro, KPIT, etc.
* Transnational R&D companies functional in India, who are doing captive design projects for parent companies from India. — Delphi, Cisco, Intel, etc.

Verticals of growth
Coming to manufacturing part, this growth is happening across five-six verticals:

* IT and office automation (OA) — where desktops and laptops are the growth drivers.
* The second area is telecom — wireless infrastructure for GSM and CDMA; also mobile phone manufacturing is emerging as a big segment.
* Next comes consumer electronics, which is driven by STBs, MP3 playerrs, TV and audio systems, etc.
* In industrial electroncis — it is being driven by UPS, energy meters, etc.
* In automotive — we have over 7 million two-wheelers being manufactured in India. The electronic content within them is growing.
* Another opportunity is in medical electronics, smart cards — now with the national ID project as well as metros coming in, and also e-passports.
* Even defence and aerospace are growing areas.

Trends and opportunities in India
The emerging trends are in security surveillance, solar energy, and LED lighting.

* Surveillance — video and security surveillance are gaining strongly.
* Solar — basically, along with solar panels, you will need MPPT charge controllers as well as solar inverters. These will fuel growth.
* LED lighting — meant to replace kerosene lamps with LED, as well as street LED lighting and auto LED lighting, along with lanterns.

On the software side, India has more of software than hardware engineers. The reason being, In India, more work based on developing applications, programming of MCUs, device driver development, etc. are majorly happening here.

 

Hence, embedded software is a bigger element of the Indian industry.

Freescale's Rich Beyer on semicon and industry trends

Here’s the synopsis of the keynote address by Rich Beyer, chairman and CEO, Freescale Semiconductor at FTF India 2009, at the Hotel Leela Palace Bangalore, on September 02, 2009.

This year we have 64 hours of technical training classes apart from extensive selection of Freescale and third-party demos in our Technology Lab. Since we met last year, the industry has experienced the greatest economic challenges in generations that had an unprecedented global impact, and no region has been immune from its effects.

India, Asia’s third largest economy, seems to have been less affected by the global economic slowdown, primarily because India’s economy is driven largely by domestic demand and is not as dependent on exports. Interest rate cuts and a fiscal stimulus equivalent to 7 percent of India’s GDP helped the economy grow by almost 6 percent in the first quarter of this year, making it the world’s fastest growing economy after China.

From a global perspective, the markets are stabilizing, and we hope that the worst is over. However, in order to compete effectively, businesses will need to become more efficient and more agile, at least for the next few years.

One of the core purposes of this FTF is to demonstrate our efforts and progress in providing you with the best possible solutions to help develop products and systems that enable your companies to win.

In Networking, multicore processors are essential to delivering the industry-leading levels of integration, performance and energy-efficiency required for next-generation communications systems. However, testing and optimizing application software for systems based on embedded multicore processors can be a time-consuming task. To help solve this challenge, Freescale has introduced our VortiQa software, a production-ready, application-level software specifically for our multicore solutions to dramatically reduce the time needed by you, our customers, for your development tasks.

To enable rapid prototyping for our microcontrollers, we have introduced the Freescale Tower System, a modular development platform with reconfigurable hardware that enables developers to mix and match MCU and peripheral boards to save both money and months of development time through rapid prototyping and tool re-use. To streamline embedded designs with our acceleration, pressure or proximity sensors, Freescale has introduced the Sensor Toolbox. This is a unified set of development software, customizable plug-and-play boards and complimentary sensor algorithms to help you get the most out of your sensor-related designs.

For the past several years, we have concentrated on three major trends that we feel represent the engines of our future growth i.e. Net Effect, Health and Safety and Going Green.

India is the world’s fastest growing mobile market, and 3G high-speed transmissions of voice, video and data is seen as the next growth driver for telecom firms in India. In Health and Safety, Freescale is helping enable monitoring solutions like glucometers and insulin pumps.  Our embedded processing technologies deliver best-in-class performance with low-power consumption and integrated RF connectivity that help diabetes patients avoid acute complications like hypoglycemia and kidney failure. Real-time cardiac monitoring solutions are allowing patients with heart disease to live a life without constant fear. Our high-performance 32-bit embedded processors, digital signal processors and digital signal controllers help provide accurate and secure portable heart monitoring solutions for those suffering from hypertension, arrhythmias and cardiac failure. In Wellness and fitness applications from pedometers to treadmills and digital bicycles are beginning to incorporate functions like calorie counters and heart rate monitors. Freescale’s microcontroller portfolio delivers one of the best price-performance ratios available for these applications.

Safety is also an extremely important trend in the world today and is the utmost requirement in the automotive market. Safety features introduced years ago like anti-lock braking, air bags and tire pressure monitoring systems are being integrated with completely new capabilities like active safety equipment that can actually help prevent accidents before they happen. Advanced safety systems like adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning and radar for object detection will add embedded intelligence to the vehicle for a higher level of safety, efficiency and convenience. We will begin to see vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure wireless communications. Embedded intelligence in the vehicle will be able to recognize traffic signs – to maintain the proper speed limit or alert the driver about approaching stop signs. And sensors will be able to detect pedestrians around the vehicle and monitor that the driver is alert and aware.

Our third growth trend is Going Green. Energy is embedded in virtually every aspect of our lives energy efficient devise will make an enormous difference. The prospect of rising oil prices and global warming has intensified the demand for more fuel efficient vehicles while at the same time meeting ever-tightening standards on emissions. In the consumer market, many countries around the world are instituting new standards to eliminate “vampire electronics”, those devices that consume a huge amount of energy even as they spend time in standby mode. The industrial sector accounts for about 37-percent of the global energy consumption. Through the use of high-efficiency motors, improved process control, automation, information processing, and robotics, we can help save the energy output equal to hundreds of coal-fired power plants.

So, those are the global trends that we feel will drive our markets today and for the foreseeable future. Now I would like to talk about the growth opportunities we see here in India and provide some insights into what Freescale is doing to address these.

Let’s start with the Automotive industry.

India’s automotive industry has reached a pivotal moment. The rise of ultra-low cost four-wheel vehicles is expected to grow the domestic market by more than one million units by 2013.  By 2012, India is expected to account for 20 percent of the increase in global car sales, surpassing the markets in Italy and Spain. At that point, India could become the leader in small-car growth. For India to become a major player in the global automotive market, a key challenge will be to engineer cars that meet stringent international emissions and safety standards. Freescale is uniquely positioned and strongly committed to helping develop the capabilities of the India automotive industry. We have partnered with the industry’s leading manufacturers and suppliers to help drive standards for component software and interconnectivity. As emerging automotive markets like India continue to gain momentum, vehicles will need cost-optimized solutions that incorporate more advanced chassis and safety systems, like airbags, tire pressure monitoring systems, and electronic stability control. Freescale offers a full range of system solutions that can scale to higher performance as needed.

Next, I want to talk about the growth of India’s networking infrastructure. Over the last few years, India’s telecommunications landscape has seen rapid growth. The 3G wireless spectrum will allow the transmission of voice, data and video at high speeds to mobile devices. Freescale is playing a key role in delivering the performance improvements and the cost reductions required to bring these next-generation networks to life.

We are the global leader in embedded communications processors.  The ever-increasing amounts of digital data are continuing to push the need for high-speed data processing. And along with this need for speed are the increasing expectations of reliability, security and the overall quality of service.

As an industry, we have been talking about 3G technology, but 3G is just now coming into widespread adoption, and with the latest innovations in Long-Term-Evolution, or LTE, we are seeing even more broadband capability becoming available.

Freescale has played a leadership role in this infrastructure growth with our RF, communications processor and DSP technology.

Our QorIQ multicore communications platforms are providing new levels of performance and low-power consumption. These products are all based on our e500 Power Architecture cores and are designed for 45-nanometer technology. Earlier this year we began sampling our first dual-core QorIQ communications processor. Given the positive feedback, we are accelerating the introduction of our eight-core QorIQ processor. This device is being combined with our new six-core DSP to provide a comprehensive solution for wireless infrastructure equipment for advanced 3G and 4G systems.

Together our Starcore DSPs and QorIQ-based microprocessors in 45 nanometer technology can help reduce the bill-of-material costs in a 10 MHz LTE base station by as much as 60 percent, while simultaneously reducing power consumption by 50 percent.

More than a century after the invention of the light bulb, today’s energy grid is little different from the one envisioned by Thomas Edison one-hundred-twenty-seven years ago.

The smart grid will play a critical role in the development of India’s economy in the future.

India is home to more than one-point-one billion people, making it the world’s second largest population. And by 2025, India’s urban population is expected to increase by 50 percent.

The Indian government is investing heavily in new power plants, and this includes renewable sources such as wind and solar energy. However to take advantage of these new sources, there will need to be a new delivery system, or smart grid, that can handle a generation mix with a high percentage of renewable energy sources.

Smart electric meters will be one of the first steps toward establishing two-way communication between the home and the utility companies. Freescale is an industry leader in smart meter technology. We offer low-power and low-cost solutions for single-phase and three-phase meter measurement. Our product portfolio includes microcontrollers with LCD drivers, and digital signal controllers for power modem functions, integrated ZigBee solutions for wireless communication, and accelerometers for antitamper security.

Once smart meters are deployed, building automation networks will help create an energy gateway to connect to home thermostats, smart appliances and other energy-intensive devices. Countries around the world are beginning to implement smart grid technologies to increase energy efficiency and incorporate renewable energy sources that will reduce our global carbon footprint.

There is a new category of handheld devices that deliver connectivity and convenience for an integrated multimedia experience. These include e-book digital readers that are transforming paper-bound media into connected infotainment devices, and they include the new smartbook Internet devices that are filling the gap between traditional notebook computing and smartphone communications.

These devices are driven by the common market characteristics of affordability, portability, Internet connectivity and all-day battery life. Freescale is delivering a common solution based on our i.MX multimedia application processors.

I am excited about the opportunities for growth in India, and I am constantly impressed by the innovation and ingenuity demonstrated by India’s talented engineers.

We are grateful to have the opportunity to share our product directions and tell you about the new and innovative solutions that we are bringing to the marketplace.

Let’s go make the world a smarter place.

Here’s the synopsis of the keynote address by Rich Beyer, chairman and CEO, Freescale Semiconductor at FTF India 2009, at the Hotel Leela Palace Bangalore, on September 2, 2009.

Rich Beyer, chairman and CEO, Freescale Semiconductor

This year we have 64 hours of technical training classes apart from extensive selection of Freescale and third-party demos in our Technology Lab.

Since we met last year, the industry has experienced the greatest economic challenges in generations that had an unprecedented global impact, and no region has been immune from its effects.

India, Asia’s third largest economy, seems to have been less affected by the global economic slowdown, primarily because India’s economy is driven largely by domestic demand and is not as dependent on exports. Interest rate cuts and a fiscal stimulus equivalent to 7 percent of India’s GDP helped the economy grow by almost 6 percent in the first quarter of this year, making it the world’s fastest growing economy after China.

From a global perspective, the markets are stabilizing, and we hope that the worst is over. However, in order to compete effectively, businesses will need to become more efficient and more agile, at least for the next few years.

One of the core purposes of this FTF is to demonstrate our efforts and progress in providing you with the best possible solutions to help develop products and systems that enable your companies to win.

On networking
In networking, multicore processors are essential to delivering the industry-leading levels of integration, performance and energy-efficiency required for next-generation communications systems.

However, testing and optimizing application software for systems based on embedded multicore processors can be a time-consuming task. To help solve this challenge, Freescale has introduced our VortiQa software, a production-ready, application-level software specifically for our multicore solutions to dramatically reduce the time needed by you, our customers, for your development tasks.

To enable rapid prototyping for our microcontrollers, we have introduced the Freescale Tower System, a modular development platform with reconfigurable hardware that enables developers to mix and match MCU and peripheral boards to save both money and months of development time through rapid prototyping and tool re-use.