iWave Systems; Indian company transiting from services to product space
Date: 30/12/2013
iWave Systems is a Bangalore, India based company, which started in year 1999 as a design services provider. But now if we look at their offerings, iWave has successfully transforming into a product selling company along with maintaining its electronics design services business. Company like iWave Systems sets an example for many Indian companies who are in the electronics design services and interested in entering electronics products business.
iWave Systems has not suddenly jumped into product business, it has gained entry into the product business gradually by utilising its strengths and the available market opportunities. However, iWave still not selling a complete branded electronic end-product/system with its label on the box. iWave Systems is presently selling system-on-modules and single board computers (SBC) for use in creative electronic products for broad range of applications. Some of the interesting end-products in personal-care/medical electronics they have displayed to the media at the recently held demo-to-media includes: a skin analyser for the skin-care advisors to suggest a skin-care product for their client, and a teeth analyzer for a dentist; both are powered by iWave's embedded computer module/software running on a powerful processor. So if the customer gives specification of electronic systems, iWave designs the board and the embedded software and manufacture the board for the customer. iWave Systems is making much of the end-product but not selling to the end-user directly.
What they do is: tie-up with companies such as Freescale semiconductor as close partners, so that they have early access to the processor chips and other design material. Before the silicon chips are available in volumes, iWave Systems develops system-on-module or system-on-board kind of products using newly launched processors from Freescale semiconductor. Infact, iWave Systems offers broad range of system-on-modules and SBCs based on Freescale's i.MX6 processor family. iWave Systems also offers products based on Intel processor chips, FPGA chips from companies such as Xilinx and Altera and such popular high-performance processor chip companies.
M.A. Mohamed Saliya, Managing Director, iWave Systems Technologies says "we make the design job easy by abstracting the design as a chipset on a module, with the design complexities already done, instead of buying a silicon from them (Original chip vendor), they buy the module from us, we enabled product development as easy task for our customer, not only the board development, it (development) also requires the software called platform software, the platform software development is a very time-consuming and expensive job for our customer, we develop the platform software also, so we offer hardware as well as software, this makes their time to market easier."
Mohamed Saliya thanked Freescale for helping small companies such as iWave.
Vivek Tyagi, Country Sales Director, Freescale Semiconductor India Pvt. Ltd. says "earlier for complex processors -- in India when we went to companies -- they said I (Freescale's customers) better go and buy end product from China and then sell, because they first (put) design investment into this product and then manufacturing, operating Systems, software... so many complexities, I think now with this(iWave kind of product design offering) many companies don't have to run to China, they can build their products right here (in India)."
Mr. Saliya says "today we are competing with the global players in this domain. "
iWave's products are designed for harsh weather conditions withstanding high temperature and moisture, so their design are not just cost saving but also reliable and rugged with certifications from CE.
Mr. Saliya rises few issue/problems in India related to electronic manufacturing, which include importing electronic components, and also high cost of high-complex pcb and board manufacturing. He says there are facilities in Taiwan and other such place where cost of manufacturing is much less than India. For local customers they use local contract manufacturing facilities and for overseas customers they use overseas contract manufacturing facilities.
Some of iWave's products include:
The system on modules such as Vybrid VF6xx / VF5xx µMXM SOM, i.MX6 Qseven SOM, AM389x/DM816x Qseven Module, Atom Z5xx Qseven SOM and single board computers such as i.MX6 Pico ITX SBC, i.MX50 QSB and i.MX27 SBC.
iWave also offers FPGA IP cores for FPGA based systems designers.
To know more on iWave Systems visit: http://www.iwavesystems.com
It's sure there are lot more Indian electronics design companies ventured into to product business, iWave is just a good example. At this end of year 2013, we can say the market opportunities for India electronics design companies are only looking better in 2014 both in India and worldwide.
Pic above: Mohamed Saliya (2nd from left), Vivek Tyagi (3rd from left) with other iWave and Freescale executives at the demo-event.
