The company has an alliance and partnership with Altera (ACAP and DSP partner), and with Analog Devices (DSP collaborator), Texas Instruments (DSP third party Network Member), Actel (solution partner), Atmel (AVR 8-Bit RISC Consultants), Montavista Linux developer, etc.

Strong domain expertise must
Given Dexcel's background, it is obvious to find out up to what extent do customers expect strong domain expertise.

Ravinder Gujral, Director, Business Development, Dexcel Electronics Designs, agrees that customers expect strong domain expertise today. He said: "Yes, customers always expect us to be well versed with the domains we work in. The end solutions are mostly complex, multi-domain products/systems and hence the design sub-contractors are engaged for the sub-system domain in which they are the experts."
 
Being in the embedded designs domain, Dexcel possesses both the hardware and software skill sets under one roof, supplemented with in-house CAD, mechanical housing and other related expertise to churn-out a complete product or solution. The company keeps a complete control on the project and hence, could deliver the products of quality and performance beyond customer expectations.
 
Success stories
Dexcel's association with technology partners is another strong point in delivering the latest technology solutions due to early access programs of the partners.
 
Gujral added: "Since we are under NDAs with most of the companies whose product we design, we may not be in the position to divulge the information. Largely, I would say that our successes have come in the areas of networking, imaging and semiconductor characterization platform creation technologies."
 
According to him, Dexcel is still in the learning phase, with the fundamental principle of design re-use for customer benefits in terms of time and money.

Re-use of IP
There is a clear case of a lot of semiconductor IPs being involved in Dexcel's line of work. Though the debate rages on over the re-use of semiconductor IPs, it was quite important to find out Dexcel's views on this subject.

According to Gujral, there are very clear benefits of re-use of IP. "Today's modular IPs have the potential to not only address complex functionality, configurability, and performance, but also provide a solution that allows for rapid and constant change of the design requirements. IPs have become the heavily sought after component in designs due to their re-usability, possibilities of customization and easy availability."

The hardware solutions are now implemented in programmable devices rather than using a host of ASICs. Every company would like to add some customization or special feature to distinguish their product from the competition. This can be achieved to some extent by the firmware and to a large extend by using IPs on programmable hardware like FPGAs.
 
Gujral added: "Everyone gets benefited because of the one-time effort of IP development and its customization/implementation to specific applications. System-on-chip (SoC), ASSP (application specific standard products), are the most benefited candidates by IP."
 
Design houses can also deliver solutions faster and cost effectively due to the design of only the "toppings" and not re-inventing the entire requirement.

He said: "Every company has limited resources and must focus those on their core competences to maximize the added value of those resources. IP re-use helps companies to launch product faster in the market as the time to market is critical for new product."

Does India have product development ecosystem?
There have been divided voices heard over the point: whether India possesses the ecosystem to develop product companies locally! Being a purely home grown company, Dexcel's views are worth noting!

Gujral said: "So far, India has had the reputation of being an outsourcing hub for embedded software. Now, this trend is changing and many companies are focusing of innovation and product development from India. The Indian design houses are moving beyond simple labor-cost arbitrage and becoming significant contributors to product innovation space. Many multinational companies are doing their new design and product development from their India design center.
 
"The Indian domestic market is driving the product innovation like in the space of mobile segment. Having said that, there are many challenges in creating an ecosystem to develop product companies like process maturity, technical in-depth know how, domain expertise and availability of qualified resources."

Gujral expressed his gratitude and appreciation toward the government of India and associations such as the India Semiconductor Association (ISA), who are working toward creating the ecosystem for product development.

"I am quite positive that things will change pretty soon, but it will take more time for semiconductor product manufacturing from India," he quipped.