Wipro, a $500 million computer company based in India, is turning its Semiconductor IP Group in Silicon Valley into a wholly owned subsidiary, called EnThink, as a precursor to raising money from the VC community and eventually filing for an IPO. EnThink was spun-off in Sept. ’98 and incorporated in November. Wipro is investing $2.5 million in the US arm and will be seeking about $5 - $10 million from V/Cs. Enthink is currently generating revenues from its various design contracts. The company has about 50 employees worldwide.

Wipro formed EnThink to addresses the market for Semiconductor IP. The US entity will concentrate on product conceptualization, architecture, marketing, sales and support while chip design will be carried out by a 35-man design team in Bangalore, India. The unit has been focused on identifying market needs and developing reusable chip designs that it licenses to companies such as Epson and VLSI Tech among others.

EnThink’s goal is to provide communications and related technology building blocks that enable OEMs in the consumer electronics industry to develop Intelligent Internet Appliances and gateways for home networking, mobile computing and other applications. EnThink acts as a one-stop shop for OEM customers, with a product portfolio that includes IP Cores, firmware, systems software and integration services.

EnThink has already developed various designs including a USB Host Controller ASIC and a 400Mbps IEEE 1394 Link Controller, designed jointly with VLSI. EnThink’s current portfolio of IP Blocks includes products for IEEE 1394, USB, Ethernet and ATM. In-Stat estimates that there will be 400 million IEEE 1394 ports in the market by the year 2000.

EnThink currently offers synthesizable cores for 1394 Link Layer and physical layer, IEC-61883 Audio/Video Link Layer, USB, 802.3 Ethernet MAC Layer, PCI, and more. A validation platform is available for 1394 and simulation models are available for PCI, PHY, and 1394. EnThink also has a software solution for IP over 1394.

Besides simple I/O blocks such as Firewire and USB, Enthink has expertise with the ARM processor, DSPs, Windows CE, protocol stacks, and management interfaces. It is even partnering with a provider of reconfigurable logic cores. Palmchip, a SOC platform company, and ARM are both partners as well.

EnThink is positioning itself as more than just an IP supplier or design shop. Its goal is to be a full service firm that can take a product idea from concept to realization. The company is focused on the Internet appliance market because it believes that these devices require high integration, custom SOCs to achieve the price/performance point required for mass-market devices. Its strategy is to work with a handful of leading OEMs in this space.

Dr. Sridhar Mitta, CEO, EnThink (formerly CTO of Wipro)
Sudip Nandy, VP, Marketing
Wayne Gartin, VP of Sales (formerly Director OEM Sales for Lucent Microelectronics)