VLSI/semiconductor IP companies in India lack escape velocity

India is a fertile ground for VLSI semiconductor start-up companies. Since from the time of economic liberalisation, quite a good number of successful VLSI design companies have born. Most of them are into services. There are few semiconductor IP product sellers too. Though they are making profit, none has reached into the range of 600+ Crore Rupees (US$ 100 million) revenue. When they are at the threshold of entering into big league of suppliers, they get acquired by multinational companies. Cosmic Circuits is one good example of silicon IP vendor finally acquired by Cadence Design Systems, a US based EDA software vendor which is now ranking up in IP domain by inorganic growth. It is not that founders of such companies wish to sell off their business, it is the difficulty of a VLSI product entrepreneur to scale further with increasingly high competition from global players. They find selling off the business is better option than pushing into the next layer. Now we got to wait and see India's leading silicon IP vendor Ittiam Systems launch off successfully into big league. Both the founders of Cosmic (Ganapathy Subramaniam) and Ittiam (Srini Rajam) held Managing Director Position in Texas Instruments India before they ventured into IP biz. Indians VLSI design companies either product or services are extremely dependent on offshore business otherwise from the mult...