It seem impossible to create those number while existing 27 IC Design House by 2020 are in desperation to survive. Then, how can we go through this?
Objective
My writing is about my understanding and what I think can help government to plan on steps to success in this area.
The Industrial Status
Currently there are 27 mixed local and foreign IC design house in Malaysia. Some of them are struggling to survive due to lack of customer. Why? These struggling companies usually have the talent to do things but not the talent to sell them. In addition, Malaysia has no strong local electronics and electrical appliances manufacturer to outsource their design works. While the leaders in design house usually have their own initiative to to sell the products and some create a good networking with strong MNCs.
For the support in this industry, many university has take note on the needs of this sector. They have started to collaborate with MNCs to developed their graduates to be a working graduates. Training centres and plug & play centres are ready to accommodate the industry needs. Local wafer fab is ready to support the production. In short, everything is ready for IC design house to operate in Malaysia.
The Way Forward / Solutions
As we know, there are few strong International design house stationed here in Malaysia. Two key words I'll use are, Pyramid & Networking. How?
Make use of the existing International design house to develop local vendor programme. How this programme can benefit them? For example, The A company is a leader in design house. They may have many demand on their products. With demand, the need to increase their supply. With Increment of the supply, there will be increment in cost (in design, the cost is mostly on licensing and overhead/manpower). How to reduce? Hire a niche local design house for niche product. Later, existing plug & play centre can provide the tools for their operations by projects. If one leader can engage 5 local design house, all we need to get is another 9 to success.
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