As part of our series titled ‘Global Trade Opportunities’ where we feature international firms that are looking forward to do business in India, Anurag Gaur from electronicsforu.com spoke to Sid Mohanty, general manager, Lattice India to know about their business strategy in India.
Lattice Semiconductor Corporation, headquartered in Hillsboro, Oregon, USA, was incorporated in 1983. Darin G Billerbeck is the president and CEO of Lattice that works in building innovative FPGA, PLD and programmable Power Management solutions. The company designs and develops programmable products, which allow the end customer to determine functionality. Lattice is expanding its Asia presence to reduce costs and better align with their customers. Its Asia development centres are located in Bengaluru, Manila, Shanghai and Singapore.
SEPTEMBER 2012: Q. Tell us more about your products and services.
A. Our customers are primarily original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the communications, computing, consumer, and industrial end markets. Our programmable devices allow our customers to rapidly implement competitive features and reduce their time to market and we lead with low power, low cost and innovation. In the last ten years we have sold over one billion programmable devices.
Our key products are: FPGAs: LatticeECP3 family that works on lowest power, highest value model; FPGAs: iCE40 mobile FPGAs; CPLDs: MachXO2: The do-it-all PLD for low density applications; design software: Lattice Diamond Design software; customer support ecosystem: IP (Intellectual Property) cores, reference designs, evaluation kits and development boards.
Q. How do you see India as a market for your products (or services)?
A. India is a key market for Lattice. Hence, we have increased our presence and investment in this market. Lattice established a design centre in Bengaluru in 2010. We provide support to our customers in India and worldwide from this centre. We are looking forward to having good growth in this market over the coming years.
Q. Which products or services do you expect to sell more in a country like India?
A. We sell all our products in India. The programmable market is growing rapidly in India. Programmable logic devices are used by customers across all vertical markets. The increase in OEM activity, as well as the increase in outsourced hardware and system designs to India, have both led to a strong increase in demand for programmable logic devices in India. Lattice can directly address the requirements of the market with its array of programmable and mixed signal devices. The India market is a strategic market for Lattice and we are increasing our investments in this market to meet the strong customer demand.
Q. What is your current strategy with respect to the Indian market?
A. India, being a key market for Lattice, we would like to increase our presence here. We continue to grow our teams in the country and this will be a strong focus for Lattice going forward. Lattice has been a leader in providing low cost, low power programmable logic and mixed signal products to its customers.
We have a strong customer base in India and we continue to grow our business in India. For example, Lattice is a leading provider of programmable logic solutions for networking and communications applications. With the strong investment in telecom infrastructure in India –2G/3G/4G wireless infrastructure as well as wired communications networks, Lattice is very well placed for success. We have also had success in high-volume consumer products like LED TVs, tablets, e-readers, laptops and cameras.
Q. Where all do you have presence in India?
A. Lattice has been present in India since 2007 in Bengaluru. We have an applications engineering team and direct sales team in India. Additionally, we also partner with our key distributors in India, Nu Horizons and Weikeng. Ajmera Summit is the point of contact in Bengaluru.
Q. Are you looking for partners, such as distributors, system integrators, etc. in India?
A. As requirements come up, we engage with partners in local markets. As such, we are always looking for strong partners in all the markets we have a presence in. We have requirements in IP development, board development, software and drivers and system integration.
Q. What are the challenges you that you face or foresee in India?
A. Growth in the Indian market has slowed over the last couple of years because of a number of factors. However, we are optimistic over the long term.
Q. Have you ever engaged in any marketing activity to generate business from India?
A. We regularly engage in marketing activities to generate business in every market we participate in. We advertise in key trade magazines around the world. Our articles are also published in leading publications worldwide. Additionally, Lattice has an online presence through our own website at: www.latticesemi.com and through social networks like Linkedin, Google+, Facebook and Twitter.
We will continue to engage with our customers worldwide through a combination of marketing activities, both print and online. The results from both of these mediums have been very positive.
