The R&D initiatives

To innovate is not new to MediaTek. As Grant Kuo, managing director, MediaTek India Technology (MTI) reveals, "Innovation is one of the core values for the firm." The company's corporate statement also includes the vision that dictates each venture of the firm, "Through constant innovation, the company strives to provide the best IC (integrated circuit) products and services in order to fulfill people's potential needs of entertainment, communication, and information."

MediaTek constantly invests in innovative R&D, setting up incentive programmes to encourage positive internal competition, to sustain and cultivate the source of corporate innovation.

The company currently has over 2,900 employees worldwide, and over 90 per cent of the employees are R&D engineers. The R&D spending at MediaTek has been approximately 9.5 per cent of 2007 revenue. The company has won many awards and honours since its inception, for notable contributions to the industry.

MediaTek has even set up industry-academia collaborations with Taiwan's top universities and wireless labs. The NTU/NCTU-MediaTek laboratory (with National Taiwan University and National Chiao Tung University) specialises in wireless communications research. This allows for a separation from the pioneering and explorative research topics defined by the university itself, and practical research needed for industry applications, establishing a sound symbiotic relationship with academic institutions.

The Indian scene

MTI, the Indian arm of MediaTek, is also keeping the corporate mission in sight. As Kuo says," {quotes}The company's pursuits are directed toward enabling affordable but good-quality solutions for Indian customers.{/quotes}" MTI's solutions have been designed to ensure compatibility with handsets in the Indian environment. Kuo reveals some of the challenges that exist in the Indian scenario: "India's GSM network setup is very complex. India is divided into twenty-three GSM circles, and all the circles have four to five service providers. They also have a variety in their network setup. That makes the job of the R&D team extremely complex."

Kuo adds, "The Indian market is still very cost-sensitive. The local R&D team works on MediaTek's cost-effective solutions to meet this requirement. We work closely with Indian brands and network operators to meet their customised requirement."

As regards the future, MediaTek plans to scale up its R&D operations even further. With the much-hyped IBM-MediaTek chipset research under way, MediaTek seems to have already made the right move!