Qualcomm may replicate China model in India: Soin

Chipmaker may look at using incentive schemes offered by the government in India

- Gulveen Aulakh & Shouvik Das

Qualcomm intends to build its China model in India where it will support the local semiconductor ecosystem by licensing technologies to local companies and startups, and bring volumes for production at semi conductor fabrication units that are expected to come up in the country in the long run, Qualcomm's newly-appointed India president Savi Soin said in an interaction with Mint.

"Our CEO has said that if fabs or Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Testing (OSATS) come to India, we are going to bring business here. Any conversation we're having with partners or government is that we bring tech and volumes. We're very interested just like we did in China, to bring the technology. We have a programme on mentorship (for startups), and we also bring scale," he said.

Qualcomm is a fabless chip maker which designs the latest technology processing integrated circuits and gets them manufactured from foundries across the world including China. The US-based chip maker has been setting up joint ventures, limited partnerships, and has brought cutting edge technology to China over the last 15 years. Soin noted that Qualcomm could look at a similar strategy for India, which is beginning to attract the global semiconductor ecosystem.