Chip maker shifts design to India (another one bites the dust)

BBC ^ | 22 April, 2004

[traumer]

Californian chip maker AMD is to set up a design centre in India, the first of its kind outside the United States. The centre to initially employ 50 engineers will be located in the technology hub of Bangalore. AMD has said its plan is part of an expansion and would not involve laying off American engineers.

A row is raging in the US over whether the outsourcing of work to the developing world where costs are lower is costing US citizens their jobs.

"We are expanding engineering operations at all of our design locations," AMD's Randy Allen said.

AMD says it will invest $5m in the centre over three years. AMD's rival, Intel, and chip makers such as Texas Instruments, Silicon Laboratories and Flextronics have already shifted part of their design work to India.

[Monty22]

As long as it's just a part, it's ok. Some stuff can be done better over there without much damage here.

Their culture over there will still stop them from being too much of a threat for awhile.

But still, it's hard to compete with educated slave labor.

[oceanview]

that's a twist - most chip work I know of is going to China, not India. Oh well, its good for US companies to have a choice as to where they will offshore all their tech jobs to!

I was talking to a co-worker just yesterday about a college choice for his 17 year old - I suggested real estate or business or law, engineering is dead in the US.

[Monty22]

Well, seems that on FR, auto mechanic is the only job really left, and that's a good thing apparently to them.

[randog]

Californian chip maker AMD is to set up a design centre in India...

How long before Athlon clones start showing up in Asia? Any bets? Two, three years?

Outsourcing your core competency is a really, really bad idea.

[templar]

Just more obsolete buggywhip industry. We're better off without it, we cqan concentrate more resources on the new emerging fields of the future.

[oceanview]

the US executives who are doing this will be long gone by then, they don't care.

as with the example I gave of my co-worker with a college bound child; all these jobs are going offshore, and the market is reacting - fewer and fewer people are going in for engineering.

[dpwiener]

But still, it's hard to compete with educated slave labor.

Wherever did you get the idea to associate India with "educated slave labor"?

[skeeter]

Well, seems that on FR, auto mechanic is the only job really left, and that's a good thing apparently to them.

In Northern CA, the auto repair business is dominated by vietnamese & mexican immigrants.

[Boundless]

> (another one bites the dust)

Not at all. The market for AMD's products (CPUs and flash
RAM is growing), and AMD is gaining market share on Intel.
Intel recently acknowledged that Intel no longer drives
the x86 CPU market, when Intel cloned AMD's 64-bit
extensions to the IA-32 instruction set architecture.

> ... set up a design centre in India, the first of its
> kind outside the United States. The centre to initially
> employ 50 engineers will be located in the technology
> hub of Bangalore.

My guess is that this is the really boring part of IC
design, routing, placement, testing, etc. I doubt if
we'll see much in the way of novel silicon from there
for some time.

> AMD has said its plan is part of an expansion and
> would not involve laying off American engineers.

Consistent with my hypothesis.

> A row is raging in the US over whether the outsourcing
> of work to the developing world where costs are lower
> is costing US citizens their jobs.

The regulatory cost of having even one employee is too
bloody high here. Until and unless this gets fixed,
employers are going to off-shore every seat they can.

And if things get tight, those off-shore hacks may be
the first hacked, because it's doubtless easier to fire
people in India than here.

[oceanview]

when there is nobody left in the US except the executive suite, legal, intellectual property, and sales and marketing; your last point may well be correct - they will fire the Indians before firing themselves!

[RaceBannon]

Like what?

[RaceBannon]

In New England, the Mexican immigrants are taking over the landscaping jobs, slowly, but surely.

Also roofing workers.

Even the low paying, manual labor jobs in the McDonalds, dishwashers in resturants

[Euro-American Scum]

as with the example I gave of my co-worker with a college bound child; all these jobs are going offshore, and the market is reacting - fewer and fewer people are going in for engineering.

As we've discussed before, lots of kids are going into engineering in U.S. universities. They're just from India, China, Russia and the Phillipines.

[SC Swamp Fox]

Three years ago my step-son was going to follow in my footsteps and pursue an engineering degree. He is now about to start college....general studies, for now. I am pushing him towards Pharmacology.

[oceanview]

but US companies know that it is cheaper to hire the chinese and indian foreign students in their home countries, then in the US. in fact, we likely have a situation now where US taxpayers subsidize tuition for foriegn national college students - who then return to their home countries and are hired by US corporations at a fraction of the prevailing US wage rate. Isn't that a twisted system?

[Nowhere Man]

I was talking to a co-worker just yesterday about a college choice for his 17 year old - I suggested real estate or business or law, engineering is dead in the US.

'Fraid you're right there. I'm 37, will be 38 and I'm usually in the IT field, but now I work in real estate, sort of fell into it and making a decent wage. Not what I set out to do, but it is very interesting. Still I plan on keep up with IT on the side, at least I can help my friend and family with the computer and if I get the engineering bug, work on ham radio projects and try to get my 1977 Mercury Cougar back on the road. I hate to see this happen, and I'm against it totally but instead of going into another diatribe on how bad it is, I'm posting a little survival story. I still like the late Harpseal's program, but unless things crash to that point, it will not be implemented or taken seriously.

[The Great RJ]

Part of the problem is with US education. We simply aren't graduating enough engineers. We have dumbed down math to ridiculous levels-- I know I teach college algebra and incoming students are virtually ignorant of simple math skills--thanks to the new math. Colleges and Universities aren't doing their part either. They are putting money into developing Peace Studies, and other pseudo-studies departments at the expense of hard science and engineering. I'm certain the number of lawyers graduating from US Universities far exceeds the number of engineers.

Asian students are well trained in the basics and hard science and particularly engineering are fortes of many Asian Universities.

[Euro-American Scum]

in fact, we likely have a situation now where US taxpayers subsidize tuition for foriegn national college students - who then return to their home countries and are hired by US corporations at a fraction of the prevailing US wage rate.

A few weeks back, I attended the USC Trojan Huddle -- the annual spring football scrimmage they have every year. After the game, they held a fire sale for all of last year's national championship merchandise. And, like always, they have students overseeing the sales and cashiering duties in the tent-setup they have for all this.

This year it was the engineering school who supervised the sale. I made a point of talking to as many students as I could. None were from this country. None. All were on financial assistance. It broke down pretty much on a consistent basis:

Tuition was paid for by U.S. government grants.
Living expenses were covered by their home govertments.
And everyone I talked to was going home when they graduated.

I don't post much on these threads anymore because I've got nothing much original to add anymore. But the tradeoff on this deal is really something to behold.

They get state of the art knowledge on how to support their own (and our) infrastructure.

We get cheap Radio Flyer wagons made in China.

Some deal.

[Nowhere Man]

I don't post much on these threads anymore because I've got nothing much original to add anymore. But the tradeoff on this deal is really something to behold.

They get state of the art knowledge on how to support their own (and our) infrastructure.

We get cheap Radio Flyer wagons made in China.

Some deal.

Yeah, me too. Sometimes I wonder if we are the new Roman Empire where we are doomed to fall at some point, again this is one of the things my father spoke to me about when I was a young kid back in the 1970's. I'm looking at a website for old TV's, I'm an radio-electronics buff, and looking at the sets made in the 1950's, it amazes me that back then, we were on the top and then a generation or two later, we are not there now, sure we have the money but without a good manufacturing base to build it on, we are a house of cards.