The Centre for Electronics Design and Technology (CEDT) at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (India), was established in 1974 with the joint support of the Department of Electronics (DoE), Ministry of Education, University Grants Commission and Swiss Development Co-operation of the Government of Switzerland. CEDT offers a post-graduate Degree programme, M Tech. in Electronic Design and Technology, research programmes leading to MSc (Engg) and Ph D. 

CEDT maintains close links with the industries through joint and consultancy projects; experts from the industry are formally associated with the Centre.  Besides, it also conducts joint workshops to understand their requirements and to benefit from their experience in order to keep the activities of CEDT relevant in the Indian context. 

indiamarkets spoke to Prof Jamadagni, Chairman, CEDT, to know more about the department and its relevance in industry circle.

indiamarkets: Product development is on CEDT’s top priority list. Can you let us know how many products really make their way to the market? 
Prof Jamadagni: Our primary focus is not on launching products. It is rather on  preparing good product designers. First of all, you should ask how many of our product designers make it to top-notch companies that are involved in making products and introducing them into the market. That would be the first bench. I would say that all the students who pass out from here are involved in product design either as entrepreneurs or working with the industry. There is a good demand for those who pass out with M.Tech from here. They are all involved without exception in product designing. There is always a small percentage that pursues doctoral studies. I would say all the students are our primary products. They are all involved and contributing towards product design in one way or the other.

Secondly, one should remember that making products is not the business of any institution. We are not in the thick of the market. There are many factors involved in launching a product. Student projects’ is just the first step. Companies suggest the product and we create the concept. The companies build on the concept and develop the product. In other words, most of the companies use institutions as a ground where they can test out what you can call as proof of concept. They would then further develop the product. 

If you go by that norm, that is the number of proofs of concept that we have done, it would be close to 30-40 per cent. Each year, we take up about 10-15 projects. At least, three-four of them make their way to the market. When it reaches the market, you may not be able to make out the relation between the product and what we did here. It will have gone through various stages of research and development at the industry level. 

A majority of our product designers (say 80 per cent) stay back here in India.

indiamarkets: How closely does CEDT interact with the industry?
Also please tell us about the industry consultancy services that CEDT offers.
Prof Jamadagni: I would say that every activity in this department is centred around the industry. All our M Tech projects are industry-sponsored. I would say that there is hardly any activity here which is not industry-related. 

indiamarkets: Why is it that most of the Indian institutions are running toward the industry, especially in the recent past? Is it for raising funds?
Prof Jamadagni: Funding from the government has dwindled and we need to depend on the industry for funding. Raising funds is certainly important. But that is secondary. Our priority is to increase the relevance of our department in catering to the industry. More than the funding, the quality and the name of the institute is important to us. Now that we have become market-driven, the way I (department) am known in the market is how good our students are. There needs to be a balance between achieving academic goals and fulfilling what the industry requires. At times, it is risky to maintain this balance. 

A new component that most of the institutions in India have started exploring is how all the teaching, research and development carried out in the department can be translated so as to benefit individuals, society and the university. So there is a trend now to create companies. It is more than an incubation centre where the department or the institute has an equity participation in the company. In the long term, the institute also benefits by acquiring Intellectual Property Rights over the developed products. 

indiamarkets: As an individual, how have you built the brand of CEDT in the industry circles? 
Prof Jamadagni: It is the department and I am one of the individuals in the department. We work on many projects in collaboration with either the industry or an educational institution. While working with them, we try to build partnerships rather than having a `big brother’ attitude.

Most of the people in this country lack in discipline and teamwork. As long as we do well in these two arenas, there is no problem. 

indiamarkets: Please tell us about the projects the department is working on at present
Prof Jamadagni: There are two broad groups of projects: Educational projects and product-oriented research projects. 

We have a large number of educational projects, which are funded by the government. We participate in a very significant and aggressive manner in these projects. For example, we participated in Project IMPACT aimed at improving the quality of education in computers and electronics at the engineering college and polytechnic levels. It was a national project with about 40 institutions involved and a financial outlay of $ 28 million. It is funded by the World Bank and cofinanced by Swiss Development Co-operation, and co-ordinated by the Department of Electronics of  the Government of India. The Indian Institute of Science was one of the five Resource Centres, where the project was coordinated by the faculty from CEDT. 

There are two projects: self-sustainability and VLSI program, which are funded by the ministry of information technology. 

The non-educational, product-oriented research projects are funded by the industry. There is a project called project Network, which is funded by Cisco. 

Each year, we conduct an annual product exhibition of M Tech Student Projects called the ‘CEDT Design EXPO’. In this exposition, there is a live demonstration of the prototype electronic products developed by the department. This effort is to bring industry and academicians closer to CEDT. The annual exposition is a culmination of the efforts of students  and faculty of CEDT in realising a working  prototype model. 

indiamarkets: Can you throw light on the ‘Design Desk’ that the department is planning to set up? When will this materialise?
Prof Jamadagni: CEDT is setting up ‘Design Desk’, a web-based tool, which will offer electronics designers information and tips in a number of application areas. The tool provides CEDT's tried and proven designs.  We would for instance have designs and PCB layout around specific DSPs. For somebody designing with a particular DSP, much of the design work will have already been done. If you are designing an add-on card, the DSP chip, memory, and I/O will be up there, and if you want to add an I/O for a specific application, you just add that and redo the layout. 

We have implemented this idea in one or two areas. We have not progressed as much as we have liked to. One of the reasons for this is lack of funding, specifically for this concept. We need a large number of people. If we find more people, we will certainly progress more. We are putting our best efforts. Probably in the next one or two years, we will see more things happening on this front.

indiamarkets: What are the challenges that the academia faces while interacting with the industry or collaborating for the development of a product? 
Prof Jamadagni: There are two main aspects. First of all, when you work with the industry, there are issues related to intellectual property of the product. When we work with a number of companies, every company would like to be guaranteed that what I do for X will not be revealed to his rival. One of the primary challenges that we have in a university is to convey this confidence to the industry and that is a challenge

The second aspect is of timeliness. For the industry, product cycle time is very important. Very often, the university cycle time does not suit them. In order to overcome this drawback, two groups will handle every project. First, the students work on the project during the course of their career. The inputs from the students’ project are then taken by another group that will look at the rest of the thing.

indiamarkets: Apart from the IT industry, the US slowdown has had its impact on the US semiconductor industry also. How do you see the Indian semiconductor industry being affected by this?
Prof Jamadagni: The semiconductor industry in India has a minimal presence. It is limited only to design. No fabrication takes place in India. From what I observe from the enquiries I get and the number of people whom I meet, there does not seem to be any problem about silicon design. They see that the cost of designing is lower here and orders are indeed still coming. Design work on this front is on. There is nothing to worry about.

I am told that bookings of companies like TSMC and United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) who manufacture most of the chips in the world have come down a little bit during the last couple of months. Everyone hopes that this is a short-lived phenomenon. Certainly the impact is not as big as that in IT industry. The electronics product industry and silicon design industry seem to be reasonably better-off. 

Yes, certainly the companies have become more cautious of their movements. Among the companies we interact with, there are four to five companies that have in their minds products to launch over the next two years. There are companies that deliver consumer electronic goods. Earlier, they would approach other design companies for chip design. Having burnt their fingers, they now want to set up their own little design house, either in the US or in India. There are companies that are investing now and making a fresh dive into this field. All these indicate that the impact of the slowdown in the US economy is not affecting the Indian semiconductor industry to a large extent.

The interviewer Pradeep B S, can be contacted at pradeep@indiamarkets.com