Chip designer Conexant Systems Inc. plans to invest more than US$250 million in India over the next five years to expand its engineering centre in the country, it announced Thursday.
The planned investment will include payroll, capital equipment, and research and development facilities, said Conexant, a fabless semiconductor vendor in Newport Beach, California. Conexant subcontracts manufacturing of its chips, having no fabrication (fab) facilities of its own.
The company currently employs about 775 engineering staff in India, and plans to increase engineering staff to over 2,000 over the next five years, it said.
Expanding its engineering staff in India at a fraction of the cost of doing so in the U.S. will help the company meet its operating expense targets and improve profitability, the company added.
Conexant has had an engineering presence in India since 1996, and now has product engineering facilities in Hyderabad, Noida, Bangalore, and Pune.
A number of multinational semiconductor companies including Intel Corp., Texas Instruments Inc. and Broadcom Corp. have chip design and embedded software development facilities in India.