Professor: Chip design center marks ‘first win’ for semiconductor industry in Indiana
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A professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University says a partnership with Taiwan-based MediaTek could serve as a model for other semiconductor companies to establish operations in Indiana. Purdue and MediaTek on Tuesday detailed plans to establish a new chip design center in the university’s Discovery Park District, which is expected to create up to 30 jobs.
“We are all excited that this is going to be a highly-synergistic relationship going forward that’s going to have a lot of win-win effects,” said Vijay Raghunathan.
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Raghunathan said the partnership is important for several reasons.
“This really represents, I think, our first win in terms of a semiconductor company actually setting up a physical office and a design center in Indiana, especially in West Lafayette in such close proximity to Purdue University,” he said. “We also view this as a terrific model going forward for other companies to see how those three pillars – namely research, education and workforce development – can go hand in hand synergistically.”
The chip design center will be located inside the Convergence Center for Innovation and Collaboration. Raghunathan says the center will focus on research and development, as well as feeding the workforce pipeline for MediaTek.
“One of the big advantages of course is that they’re located so close to Purdue, virtually on the Purdue campus, and so research and development and tight collaboration with the university is going to be an integral part of it,” he said. “We’re still brainstorming and discussing and figuring out exactly what the technical scope is going to be [for] the research relationship between Purdue and the MediaTek folks in this design center.”
Raghunathan says, from a broad perspective, they have identified some areas where there will be a “solid, synergistic relationship.” They include next-generation computer architectures and chips for next-generation communications architectures such as 6G.
While the center will focus on research and design, MediaTek will not be manufacturing any chips in West Lafayette. Raghunathan says MediaTek is a fabless semiconductor company, which means another party does the manufacturing of chips as a service.
“I know that Purdue is in discussions with other companies to have that semiconductor manufacturing component follow very soon to Indiana and, hopefully, close to Purdue. But, that is going to be independent of MediaTek.”
The partners are looking to get the center up and running over the next several months. Hiring for electrical engineering and chip design positions in West Lafayette is expected to begin soon.
“MediaTek already hires quite a bit from Purdue, and we’re hoping that essentially some of that pipeline will get redirected almost immediately to this West Lafayette design center,” said Raghunathan.
Looking long-term, Raghunathan says he hopes the partnership can be expanded with MediaTek not only adding more jobs, but also funding research projects and chair professorships to attract top research talent from around the world.