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University of Pune ties up with Intel

September 23rd, 2008

PUNE: The University of Pune (UoP) and semiconductor giant Intel India on Monday announced a joint initiative in order to create a specialised workforce in Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) layout design, required by the semiconductor industry.

The programme aims at tapping talented postgraduate and undergraduate science students and generating awareness about the opportunities that exist for basic science passouts, in specialised fields like VLSI design.

Initially, the focus will be on M.Sc students from UoP’s department of electronic science (DoES) and undergraduate students will later be covered later in areas such as custom layout for integrated circuits (IC) design.

VLSI refers to the process of creating integrated circuits by combining thousands of transistor-based circuits in a single chip. The semiconductor industry is a major user of this process to create products that have wide-ranging applications across the industry.
While trained manpower employability for India’s VLSI design industry is pegged at 7.80 lakh by 2015, the industry continues to grapple with a huge demand-supply gap for competent professionals.

As part of its corporate social responsibility activity, Intel runs a dedicated higher education (IHE) progamme that focusses on technology curriculum, research with universities, student programmes and technology entrepreneurship. It is through IHE that Intel got into the country’s ‘first-of-its-kind tie-up’ involving a university electronic science department.

While the tie-up was jointly announced by Pandit Vidyasagar, director, UoP’s board of college and university development, and Manav Subodh, corporate affairs head for Intel India’s south-west region — the foundation was laid last year when UoP DoES and Intel started a pilot project to train 10 M.Sc students in VLSI layout design.

Senior DoES faculty member S.V. Ghaisas said, “Intel helped us install the Cadence software tools required for IC mask design studies, which is a key stepping stone to advanced learning in VLSI design.” The select students underwent a six-month special internship programme at Intel’s India headquarters in Bangalore as well as at other companies like Sasken, he said. “Barring one student, who went for MS studies abroad, the rest got jobs at leading companies,” said Ghaisas.

Interacting with reporters, Subodh conceded that joint initiatives like these needed to be scaled up further to meet the huge manpower requirement. “What we have attempted here is to explore the niche areas where the universities have a strength and work towards structured programmes,” he said. The idea was also to retain the interest of basic science students in such niche areas, he added.

On his part, Vidyasagar said that the tie-up forms a key element of the UoP’s thrust on greater industry-institute interaction. “We want such joint initiatives to work as sort of integrated finishing schools that ensure direct employability for students,” he said.
Source:TOI

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