The recently concluded 10th e-Services Global Sourcing Conference and Exhibition saw a marked participation of domestic start-ups doing chip design on a global scale signaling hope for the Philippine semiconductor industry outside manufacturing, according to the Department of Trade and Industry’s Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM).

In the past, majority of Filipino chip designers work for large multinational companies, however, following the massive lay-offs and worldwide recession of recent years, ex-Intel IC design engineers formed together a Filipino operation involved in the design and layout outsourcing for a number of US-based memory chips companies.

“Our goal is to keep our competencies and encourage jobs locally for our engineering graduates,” said Robert Minguez II, president and senior design engineer of Xinyx Design. “An IC design industry is possible in the Philippines because Filipino engineers are capable of highly specialized and high value services.”

Global research firm Gartner reported that semiconductor revenue would rebound in 2010 from sales decline of more than 10% in 2009. Same study pointed to worldwide semiconductor revenue reaching US$255 billion this year.

“In the long-term, we want to put the Philippines on the map of IT design services. Filipinos have the skills sets. We can become good IT designers and IC layout engineers,” added Minguez.

Meantime, another Philippine IC design company APAC IC recently collaborated with leading US-based software and IP design firm Synopsys, Inc. The company is adopting custom designer tool for its layout engineers in a bid to meet the demands of their diverse international clients.

“We want to grow our IC physical design business and contribute to establishing the Philippines as a center of semiconductor excellence,” said APAC IC CEO and president Jerome Avondo.“We want to leverage on the Filipino talent and resources at excellent value with high quality work, with no long lock-in periods.”

For several years, Filipino software engineers have been doing 70% of flash memory chip design for big companies. These flash memory chips were used by global brands including Nokia, Samsung, and Blackberry.

“A lot of people are excited about the features of these phones but they do not realize that a good chunk of it was done by Filipinos here in the Philippines,” said Avondo. On the other hand, local company Golf Electronics Corporation developed a cost saving solution and eco-friendly hardware “Plug and Pair” that converts wired devices (e.g. keyboards, mouse, game controllers, PC remotes) into wireless. According to Danilo Lamaroza, technical director of Golf Electronics, “The technology is rechargeable thus eliminating the need for placing battery compartments and making major modifications to the plastic enclosures.”

The product won the 2010 e-Services Awards Groundbreaking Technology of the Year. “This full custom IC integrates the charging and the protection of the on board lithium battery, the power management, the device serial ID management and interface functions," he added.

“Our clients are electronics or plastics OEMs and ODMs locally and abroad. We hope to encourage local manufacturers in electronics and in the plastics industry to produce competitive HID products at par with global standards,” he further said.

Source: http://www.citem.com.ph/DisplayIndividual_newsarchive.asp?ID=340