At the graduation ceremony, ICDREC signed with Japan's CM Engineering Co. a contract to design software for analogue ICs. — Photo dantri

HCM CITY (VNS) — Fifteen engineers graduated yesterday from the first analogue integrated circuit design course at the Viet Nam National University-HCM City's Integrated Circuit Design Research and Education Centre in HCM City.

Their 10-month programme, approved by the city People's Committee in 2012, was the first under the city's 2013 – 2020 Semi-conductor Industry Development Programme.

The hard IP cord of the 24-bit Delta-Sigma Modulator (DSM) was the first product designed by the trainees, and the analogue chip has been sent abroad for manufacturing, according to the programme steering board.

At the graduation ceremony, ICDREC signed with Japan's CM Engineering Co. a contract to design software for analogue ICs.

Ngo Quang Vinh, deputy director of ICDREC, said: "CM Engineering has placed an order with ICDREC after studying the capacity of the centre's human resource. The order shows the effectiveness of the centre's training programme and its design centre.

The city's semi-conductor industry development programme, which was entrusted to ICDREC, comprises of seven components: training of human resources; incubating IC businesses; developing the semi-conductor market; design and production of semi-conductors on a trial basis; advertising and launch in the market; building and running a design centre; and setting up a chip manufacturing plant.

ICDREC said products that have been commercialised based on Vietnamese technology included SG-8V1 and KIT DE-8V1 chips, container electric locks, itinerary surveillance devices, electronic meters, DCM (data collection modems), and RFID (radio frequency identification) management systems.

The centre said over 20 billion chips were consumed in Viet Nam every year. — VNS