Bangalore: Semiconductors, silicon chips that run mobile phones, game consoles, photo copiers, television sets and almost all other electronic devices are in search of a saviour—a killer application that can maintain its magic run that began with the personal computer and consumer electronics booms in the 1990s.
And, it seems, medical applications—growing at 12% annually, higher than any other semiconductor application, according to market research firm Databeans Inc.—could well be the knight in shining armour.
Top priority: Semiconductor makers are looking at medical applications as the next big opportunity because other markets are saturated.
“The industry is looking for the next big thing; everybody is searching to find efficiencies in their businesses—improve productivity and reduce cost,” says Jaswinder Ahuja, corporate vice-president and managing director of Cadence Design Systems India Pvt. Ltd and chairman of industry lobby Indian Semiconductor Association (ISA).
For these reasons, even though medical semiconductors comprise just about 1% of the global industry—and projected to reach $266.6 billion (Rs11.4 trillion) this year, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, a US grouping—ISA assigned medical electronics top priority at its annual summit earlier this year. Ahuja says the sector offers unique opportunities in India, which has the need as well as the capability to address it.
The industry has begun chipping at the opportunity. Texas Instruments Inc., or TI, recently unveiled a new class of chips for portable to high-end ultrasound diagnostic equipment, which the company says allows better image quality and reduced power consumption.
In April, TI signed an agreement with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, to develop semiconductor technologies for health-care applications—the first association for the company with an IIT in this area, according to Biswadip Mitra, managing director, TI India.
GE Medical Systems Information Technologies Pvt. Ltd in Bangalore is currently evaluating this chip for its forthcoming portable ultrasound products, for India as well as the global market.
GE recently launched a portable electrocardiograph, or ECG, machine that gives results at as low as $1 compared with $25- $100 otherwise.
The second biggest medical semiconductor supplier, STMicroelectronics NV (ST), has virtually built a “technology toolbox” to facilitate convergence of semiconductor and health care industries.
Using technology that was originally developed for ink-jet applications, it recently unveiled a “lab-on-a-chip platform” called In-Check, whose first product, in collaboration with a Singapore firm Veredus Laboratories Pvt. Ltd, is an avian flu diagnostic test.