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Conexant Could See More U.S. Hiring, But India Rules

Conexant Systems Inc. isn’t all India these days.

The Newport Beach chipmaker still has plans for its U.S. operations, according to spokeswoman Gwen Carlson.

Conexant will continue to take care of its U.S. engineers and could see more hiring, she said. Carlson didn’t give specifics.

Even so, India “probably will be the largest portion of employees” for Conexant, Carlson said.

The company said earlier this month it plans to invest $250 million in India in the next few years. The money could help it boost its headcount there to more than 2,000 people in five years. About 775 of Conexant’s 2,400 workers now are in India.

The company has had operations in India since 1996. But last year it boosted its efforts, adding about 575 people. The move was meant to drive down costs as Conexant worked to get back to profitability after several quarters of losses.

Indian engineers are cheaper than U.S. engineers,hardly a secret in technology.

Conexant’s big push into India is part of a turnaround effort by Dwight Decker, Conexant’s chief executive. Decker came out of semiretirement in late 2004 to fix a company that had sunk deep into red ink after a difficult combination with Red Bank, N.J.-based GlobespanVirata Inc.






Show floor: battle of the big screens

His work has paid off. Conexant returned to profitability during the quarter ended Sept. 30, three months ahead of schedule.

Now Decker said he wants nothing less than double-digit core operating margins by the end of 2006. That would match the margins Conexant posted before its downturn.

The company consistently has said hiring cheaper engineers in India would help U.S. engineers, including those in Orange County. Engineers here can hand off the more mundane development work to India so they can focus on the most cutting-edge stuff, according to the company.

“Our goal is to keep innovation in the U.S.,” Carlson said.

The move saves money and allows Conexant to get more chips to market more quickly. Engineers now can tackle projects that were put on the back burner during the turnaround, Carlson said.

Conexant makes chips for high-speed modems and other communications devices.

Carlson made her comments from a rented suite at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas during the International Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month.

Decker skipped CES for the 19th International Conference on VLSI (very large scale integration) Design in Hyderabad, India, where he announced the $250 million investment. VLSI refers to the number of bits on a chip.



Speaking of CES …

I didn’t have as much time as I wanted to see and touch all of the new gadgets out at CES. But I saw enough to share some highlights from my trip:

Big flat-panel screens. They were everywhere,evidence all the tech companies read the same stories about how they were the biggest sellers during the holidays.

Samsung Electronics Co. bragged it had the largest plasma TV at 102 inches, that’s 8.5 feet. It wasn’t for sale but was featured at the center of Samsung’s sprawling “booth” that seemed to take up a football field’s worth of square footage.

As I made my way through the hall, I discovered Samsung’s bragging didn’t go unanswered: Panasonic Corp., part of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., had one that was 103 inches. Frankly, they both are big. I wouldn’t mind having either one come Super Bowl Sunday.

Irvine’s own Linksys, part of Cisco Systems Inc., unveiled the Wireless-G Music Bridge, which lets users play any kind of music file on your home speakers.

Northern California’s GameRunner Inc. may have found a way to get gamers exercising by combining a shooter game with a treadmill. The setup forces users to physically run to keep the character on the video game moving. It got a CES award.



Speaking of Running …

I’m hardly an expert on Las Vegas conventions, but CES was big, taking up a record amount of space and hosting a record number of people compared to years past (see story, page 3).

After adding the south hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center in 2002, this year a growing number of exhibitors forced CES to expand to much of the Sands Expo and Convention Center, taking up more than 1.6 million square feet in total.

The show drew more than 150,000 people. To put that in perspective, only one city in my home state of Oregon has more than that, Portland.

This kind of crush overwhelmed every mode of transportation.

On Friday afternoon I needed to leave the main hall to dart to a meeting with Santa Ana-based Ingram Micro Inc. at the Aladdin. But there would be no darting. The line for the shuttle ran into the hundreds,and there was no shuttle there when I walked up.

The meeting was in 35 minutes. I asked for some other ideas from people in line. Taxis were backed up with the traffic. I don’t have the VIP status for much of anything else.

Thankfully, I found the monorail. It still took 40 minutes-plus. But I didn’t miss the meeting completely.

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