Recognising India’s design potential, Lattice Semiconductor has established an R&D centre in Pune to develop innovative FPGA solutions. In an exclusive conversation with EFY’s Yashasvini Razdan, Ford Tamer answers the question—Why India?
Q. What are the challenges in the electronic semiconductor industry that Lattice intends to address with an R&D centre in Pune?
A. Major challenges include shortening design cycles and increasing costs in advanced process nodes (for example, 3 nanometres and 2 nanometres). FPGAs provide flexibility by enabling rapid prototyping and software updates, avoiding the high costs and long timelines associated with application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). For fast-evolving areas like security and AI, FPGAs offer adaptability to changing requirements. Our Pune design centre focuses on developing vision, security, and edge AI solutions to address these challenges.
Q. Why should an electronics embedded design company design in India?
A. India offers exceptional access to talent in silicon design, software engineering, and AI development, aligning with our hiring objectives. Despite intense competition for skilled professionals, the region remains cost-effective.
We compete with major global companies like Google and Amazon to hire highly skilled AI and machine learning experts, silicon designers, and digital signal processing (DSP) software engineers. Having a global footprint allows us to leverage the unique strengths of different locations while optimising operational costs.
Q. Do you view India as a consumer market or as a talent pool for developing solutions?
A. Both. This centre designs solutions for customers worldwide and tailors products for local and multinational companies in India. For instance, we collaborate with semiconductor companies, electronics manufacturing services (EMS) providers, and major local players like Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) and Tejas Networks.
India’s strong localisation strategies align with our approach to addressing the needs of both local and global markets. This centre also supports regional operations in the Asia-Pacific, with data centres and support systems complementing our efforts in Manila, Penang, and Shanghai.
Q. How does having an R&D centre in India align with your global innovation strategy?
A. At a high level, Lattice focuses on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which require silicon, software, and artificial intelligence (AI) expertise. We have silicon engineers working on chip design (hardware design layer), while another team develops software tools and soft intellectual property (IP) solutions. We have also hired engineers with AI expertise to create market-relevant solutions and integrate AI into our devices.
We recognise the critical importance of AI as a rapidly evolving segment and, therefore, categorise it separately from software and hardware.
Q. What challenges did Lattice face while setting up the Pune R&D centre?
A. Despite initial concerns about bureaucratic hurdles, the support from STPI (Software Technology Parks of India) and local agencies was exemplary. Accelerated approvals enabled us to operationalise the centre within eight months. We currently employ nearly 70 people and anticipate exceeding 100 in the coming months.
Q. How does Lattice view competition in India for its products?
A. Globally, there are three major players in the FPGA space: Lattice, AMD, and Altera. While AMD and Altera focus on large FPGAs, we lead the small- to mid-range FPGA market, shipping between 200 and 250 million units annually. Our strategy is to focus on differentiated solutions in this segment, which aligns well with India’s growing emphasis on wearables, hearables, and industrial automation.
Q. Any plans on developing or working with open source tools or RISC-V?
A. We are actively exploring ways to integrate open source tools, especially in soft IP and RISC-V. We aim to contribute to India’s rapidly evolving electronics design ecosystem by providing RISC-V soft IP and adopting open source strategies.
