Mumbai: IBM Corporation (www.ibm.com) has announced the establishment of a new centre in Bangalore, to provide technology design services for advanced chips, cards and systems to companies in India and across Asia.

The centre will coordinate and leverage regional engineering, research and technology design services delivery skills from several IBM locations to design a wide variety of new electronic gear for customers. These designs will range from complex chips to entire systems.

IBM, through its engineering and technology services division, helps companies in a variety of industries design innovative products. With this addition in Bangalore, the organisation is approaching 1,000 engineers. In addition to India, technology services design centres are located in the US at Burlington, Endicott, Rochester, Austin, Texas and Raleigh; in Europe, at Mainz, Germany; in Japan at Yamato.

Service offerings from this new business initiative fall into four basic categories: 1. Component solutions: system on chip design services; custom circuit design services. 2. System solutions: system architecture and design services; power, packaging and cooling solutions. 3. Technology consulting: IP management consulting; manufacturing consulting; verification and on demand ''e-design'' services. 4. Mission transfer services: enabling a company to focus on its core competencies while turning over entire engineering missions to IBM.

"The company''s design capabilities are the broadest in the industry," says Uday Shukla, director, Technology Group Lab, India. "We have a history of high client satisfaction in technology design services, a record of success in the OEM market and industry-leading semiconductor technologies. We can, therefore, provide a variety of clients with unique, cost-effective, end-to-end solutions. The India centre will enable IBM to leverage a vast and talented Indian IT talent pool, competent in VLSI and embedded software design to create quality and innovative solutions for our customers."

The new centre will combine deep technical know-how with access to IBM''s vast portfolio of intellectual property, helping clients enhance current products or build entirely new products. Skills will be broad: they will include ASIC logic designers, physical design, verification, mechanical design, server system firmware, card design plus embedded and application software expertise, especially in Linux.

Shukla says the centre''s value proposition is all about access, giving clients a portal into IBM, leveraging system design expertise, best-practice design methodologies for affordable custom chips and a variety of skills and talent that can be made available on demand.