The iPod - Andhra Connection

'80 engineers at the Hyderabad-based Pinexe Systems designed and engineered the chip that powers the iPod, Apple Computer's MP3 player. The team delivered the chip in 18 months and at a cost of $2 million' - Chip design? India's hot!

'The more closely you examine a microchip, the more complex it appears, and so does any attempt to grapple with the true impact of globalization. But following the journey of PortalPlayer's chip from Santa Clara to Hyderabad, India, to Taipei, Taiwan, to Shanghai, China, and back around again, offers clues on how to think about it.'
' Open up an iPod and pull out the PortalPlayer chip. Stare at the silicon, see the world. '
'The chip's design, an immensely complex and labor-intensive undertaking involving both hardware layout and software coding, would be split between the U.S. and a fully owned subsidiary in Hyderabad, India. '
' Today, PortalPlayer employs some 194 people. About half of those are in Hyderabad.'
' Those million lines of code are PortalPlayer's competitive advantage, the intellectual property that makes songs on your iPod sound good and the device easy to use. The code is written by PortalPlayer's developers in Santa Clara and Kirkland, and its fully owned subsidiary in Hyderabad, India.' - The World in the iPod