BANGALORE, India — A new venture offering analog and mixed-signal design and layout services has been launched by Vivek Pawar, an industry veteran who was most recently at Texas Instruments India for 15 years. Christened Sankalp Semiconductor, the firm plans to provide methodology and automation-oriented high-end services and solutions in these areas.

The venture will utilize multiple groups working from smaller cities such as Hubli in southern India's Karnataka state and eventually others. Using engineering students is an essential part of Sankalp's development activities.

"India has few companies offering mixed-signal services and the companies existing in this domain elsewhere are generally into low-end services. But India is now in a position where it can use the engineering aptitude and numbers of engineers available, the semiconductor knowledge of experienced designers here and become a hub of mixed-signal solutions," said Pawar, founder and CEO, Sankalp Semiconductor Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore.

Sankalp is already involved in work on 90-, 65- and 45-nm technologies and has done work in data converters, custom analog blocks and wireless modules. The company is also looking at memory and RF layouts and a solution to cut cycle time for mixed-signal chip assembly is in the works, Pawar said. "There is a huge market among European, Indian, Japanese and U.S. companies and with a focus on each domain in the mixed-signal space, we have no doubt we can do well. We will also provide consultancy on a case-by-case basis in this space," Pawar added.

Pawar, who holds 4 patents in the mixed-signal space, was a general manager at TI when he quit. Sankalp's funding so far has come from Pawar and some of his friends. The company plans to hike staff from 42 now to about a 100 within the next 12 months.