It is the right time to showcase Lattice’s capabilities

Lattice Semiconductor Corporation, which designs, develops and markets a range of semiconductor components called programmable logic products, launched its third generation high value field programmable gate array (FPGA), the mid-range 65nm Lattice ECP3 family and the ispClock 5400D family in Bangalore recently. On the occasion, Rakesh Agarwal, country manager, India, Lattice Semiconductor, spoke to Jesus Milton Rousseau S of Electronics Bazaar about Lattice’s new products and the company’s growth plans

Tuesday, April 07, 2009: EB: How is the present FPGA programmable logic device (PLD) and complex programmable logic device (CPLD) market scenario in India?

The PLD market is constantly growing in India. PLD TAM (total available market) is estimated to grow by over 20 per cent in 2009. The defence and telecom industries are major consumers of PLDs. FPGAs and CPLDs are finding more and more applications in traditional and emerging market segments because of their inherent nature of being programmable. Also, we are witnessing increased usage of PLDs in medical, industrial, consumer and automotive applications. Hence, the current scenario is good and the future appears to be even more promising.

EB: Altera, Xillinx and Lattice have all launched new FPGAs in the short span of just a month. Was there any significant reason for this haste?

Similar launches by other PLD companies also address the low-cost market segment, where Lattice already has a dominating presence since the launch of the ECP2M in 2006. The launch of the ECP3 now, is a natural progression in leveraging our FPGA family. With the launch of the ECP3, we have become even more strongly positioned in the already Lattice-dominated market.

EB: Did you face any challenge because you launched new products at the time of recession?

These economically challenging times present immense opportunity for us to showcase Lattice’s capabilities and the value of our FPGA devices at extremely low costs, thereby engaging with more customers who are also facing the same financial circumstances and also confront perpetual price pressures from the end markets that they serve.

EB: Why hasn’t Lattice entered the 45 nm market yet?

Lattice is already working in 45nm technology with a well-defined roadmap to produce 45nm products.

EB: What are the unique features of the new Lattice products?

The ECP3 is extremely high in performance, with the lowest possible consumption of power and has the highest value, per dollar, compared to similar FPGAs. Also, we believe that the ECP3 will further create a larger market of its own and will be able to serve newer applications requiring higher performance and cost sensitivity. Hence, the ECP3 will help create a bigger market for PLDs worldwide, with those applications that are currently being served by application specific standard parts (ASSPs).

EB: What is the growth percentage of Lattice in India? When will it start a research and development (R&D) centre in India?

Our annual growth rate is 30 per cent and we anticipate the same healthy hike for the next three to four years at least.

We will make a modest start in India, with a small application engineering team. We expect to begin R&D here in the beginning of the second quarter of 2009.

EB: Who are your distribution partners in India? Any plans to increase the number of distribution partners in the near future?

Currently, we have three distribution partners in India—Vicinity Technologies, Spectra Innovations and FE-Global. For the present nature of our business, we have excellent resources in terms of distribution partners, so we are not looking to add any more to our family as of now.

Electronics Bazaar, South Asia’s No.1 Electronics B2B magazine