Traditional defence focus

Bharat Electronics Ltd branched away from its traditional defence focus earlier this decade and is an important volume producer of ICs. It signed on SGS Thomson Microelectronics to help boost its fabrication output from 15 million to 100 million units using the 15cm (6-inch) wafer and 1.5-micron technology, and has been graduating from strength to strength since then.

The private sector achievements read like a book of records in electronics. Texas Instruments India, like many multinational subsidiaries in the country, has invested heavily in VLSI facilities. Its centre for design is one of the largest in the world. It recently designed a completely Indian core chip called Ankoor. 

It is the first US company to have designed a core processor (a chip loaded with software) completely in India. As far as memory chips are concerned, the first full-chip memory design for 4M DRAM in India was completed as early as 1993. An 8M flash memory chip has also been designed in India.

Interestingly, FFA has forged relationships with ITC in Medak district in Andhra Pradesh for sourcing vegetables on about 200-300 acres with over 700 growers and is in talks with Heritage Foods for supplying over one lakh bags of Sona Masoori rice. ''We are in the process of forming a society towards this,'' Reddy said. On the same lines, a co-operative movement is already in place for dairy products in association with National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), he added.