Food Recipes: Mentor and Global Unichip optimistic about China and India handset markets

Walden C Rhines, chairman and CEO of Mentor, has commentated that emerging markets in the Asia Pacific, such as China and India, will be the fastest-growing markets for consumer electronics (CE) products. Players in the IC design industry should strive to open channels in those markets, Rhines advised. Meanwhile, Jim Lai, president and COO of Global Unichip emphasized the growing potential of handset markets in China and India. Both Rhines and Lai were speaking at the recent EDA Tech Forum hosted by Mentor in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

Rhines said he expects the urban middle class in China and India will bring more opportunities for electronics products oven the next twelve years. Consumer spending will amount to US$3.5 trillion in China and US$3 trillion in India by 2010, he estimated. New handset subscribers will multiply in these two countries within three years, Rhines added.

Rhines noted that when approaching emerging markets, companies should take into account the needs of local niche markets. For example, the Asia Pacific area has the highest number of train commuters in the world, which has led to a rapid increase in demand for mobile TV devices. China-based Telegent Systems shipped five million mobile TV chips in the past nine months, Rhines pointed out.

Global Unichip president Lai added that semiconductor industry growth is slowing down while the IC design field is becoming more complicated with higher technological advances. He pointed out that handset subscriptions in China and India are increasing at a rate of 7-8 million per month.

In addition to concerns over costs, power dissipation and yield rates, IC design industry players need to, on the one hand differentiate themselves, what at the same time cooperate on integration across different fields such as digital, analog, mix-signal and radio frequency (RF) to develop system level design solutions. The IC design industry is facing more challenges in a fast-growing market, Rhines concluded.