HCL partners with Vitesse

HCL Technologies, an IT services and product engineering companies in India, has tied up with Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation, a global Integrated Circuit (IC) solutions provider based in California for LAN/WAN/SAN markets, by setting up an Offshore Development Center (ODC) in
Chennai.

The ODC, acting as an extended arm of Vitesse' design engineering team, would work on next generation networking technologies such as high performance FPGAs, ASIC design and verifications and networking and telecom protocols. HCL would provide hardware and software development services to assist Vitesse' customers build a variety of advanced networking products. It would also work on reference designs for OEMs.

The ODC, right now manned by about 60 engineers from HCL and about 20 engineers from Vitesse and its partners, would be executing advanced technology projects ranging from Network processor based high-speed optical interfaces, networking protocol stacks, and Network services to connectivity for switching fabrics. 

Currently, the ODC is executing about seven projects for Vitesse of the order of 20 man-years and Vitesse would own the Intellectual Property rights as well as the end product developed at the
ODC.

"We are proud to be associated with Vitesse in designing Complex Integrated Circuits and we expect to leverage on the knowledge we get with associating with Vitesse and its partners. If the partnership goes at the current rate, we would be looking at something in the range of 7-8 million dollars annually," said R Vaidyanathan, Executive VP, HCL Technologies and Head of the Core Technologies Center. 

Vitesse, which staffs, equips and funds the ODC, has already invested a million dollar in the ODC. "When partnering with HCL, the cost saving factor was not at all a significant consideration. The Network processor market is an emerging market, which is expected to grow into a 7.5 billion-dollar market in 2004. Our focus was on the expertise HCL offers in reaching the products to the customer at a faster pace than many other companies in the US, enhancing our ability to introduce competitive products," said Steave Sheafor, VP-Technology,
Vitesse.