News: Philips' chip unit to invest 250 m euros in India

(RTR 04/09/2006) Bangalore - The semiconductor business unit of Philips Electronics will invest 250 million euros ($321.4 million) in India over the next five years to boost research and sales activities, an official said on Monday.

The semiconductor business of Philips Electronics will be named NXP after the Dutch electronics conglomerate sells it later this year. The new name is an abbreviation of Next Experience.

Philips has agreed to sell 80.1 per cent of the business to private equity investors Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), Bain Capital, Silver Lake Partners, Apax and AlpInvest Partners. Philips will retain 19.9 per cent.

"We are investing more and more in India and this is a part of our strategy. We are the second or third biggest research and development centre for the company," Rajeev Mehtani, vice president of NXP Semiconductors India, told reporters here.

He said the company would invest an additional 5 million euros in a second state-of-the-art campus to be set up in India's technology capital Bangalore.

Started in 1996 to save costs by hiring low-cost Indian engineers, the Bangalore campus has now become a key innovation centre for technology spanning digital televisions to cell phones and medical equipment.

NXP Semiconductors India has a total workforce of 700 engineers and plans to increase the headcount in the years ahead. Mehtani said NXP India would continue to work with Indian software companies for chip design and would raise the number of such partners to 20 in the next few years, up from 5 now.