Analog, power and microcontroller chipmakers

The chips that sense, power and control, from the washing machine to the car

A washing machine has a small chip that runs its wash cycle. A car has more than a thousand chips. They open the windows, fire the airbags, run the brakes and manage the battery. Most chips are not powerful processors. They are small, cheap chips that sense the world, control a machine or manage its power.

Three kinds of chip

Microcontrollers

A microcontroller is a small computer on one chip: a processor, memory and connections to the outside, all together. It runs one job, such as a car window, a motor or a thermostat, with software written for that job. The industry calls this software embedded software.

Analog chips

The real world is analog: temperature, pressure, sound and light change smoothly. Computers work in digital numbers. Analog chips turn real-world signals into numbers, and numbers back into signals. They also include the amplifiers that strengthen weak signals.

Power chips

They switch and convert electric power. They decide how much current flows from a battery to a motor, or from a charger into a phone.

Sensors belong here too: chips and small devices that measure motion, pressure or light.

Inside a machine such as a car window or a washing machine: a sensor measures the real world, an analog chip turns its signal into numbers, a microcontroller running embedded software decides what to do, and a power chip feeds the motor from the battery. Analog Devices and Texas Instruments make analog chips, Infineon Technologies and onsemi power chips, Yaanendriya and Varex Imaging Corp. sensors, and NXP Semiconductors, Microchip Technology, Renesas Electronics and Alif Semiconductor microcontrollers.

How this market differs from processors. These chips sell for a few rupees to a few hundred rupees each, but in billions. A single chip design can stay in production for 10 or 20 years, because cars and factory machines are built for decades. Carmakers test and approve each chip before use, and then rarely switch. The chip makers make many of these chips in their own factories. Their engineers also write the software and development tools that customers use to program the chips.

Where India fits. Most of the large makers have run design centres in India for many years. Texas Instruments opened the first one in Bengaluru in 1985. That start grew into India's chip-design industry.

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

This Market Segment has two sub-segments:

Analog, power and sensing: chips that connect electronics to the real world and manage power

Microcontrollers for the car and the device: the small computers that run cars, appliances and machines

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Analog, power and sensing
Microcontrollers for the car and the device

Analog, power and sensing

Analog and mixed-signal chips, power semiconductors, sensors, inertial navigation, X-ray detectors

Analog chips

Analog Devices

with engineers in Bengaluru and Kolkata, makes the converters, amplifiers and sensors that connect electronics to the physical world, in factories, hospitals and cars.

Texas Instruments

with engineers in Bengaluru, makes analog chips and embedded processors. Its Bengaluru centre, opened in 1985, was the first that a multinational chip company set up in India. It was the start of India's chip-design industry.

Power chips

Infineon Technologies

the German group, with engineers in Bengaluru, is the largest maker of power semiconductors and of chips for cars. Its chips manage the battery and the motor of an electric car.

onsemi

with engineers in Bengaluru, makes power chips for electric cars, and image sensors for cars' cameras.

Motion sensors

Yaanendriya

with engineers in Bengaluru, makes motion sensors and navigation units for drones and vehicles. These units work out where a vehicle is from its own movement, without GPS. The industry calls this inertial navigation.

One company covered mainly in another Market Segment also works here:

Varex Imaging Corp.

with engineers in Pune, makes X-ray detectors. (More on it in Market Segment 24.3, Medical imaging and radiology AI, in Industry Vertical 24, Hospitals, diagnostics and medical devices.)

Microcontrollers for the car and the device

Microcontrollers, automotive processors, touch and display chips, AI microcontrollers

Chips for cars and industry

NXP Semiconductors

the Dutch company, with engineers in Hyderabad, Delhi and Bengaluru, makes the processors and microcontrollers of cars. It also makes the chips in contactless cards, and many industrial controllers. NXP has the most job postings in this Market Segment. (More on the chips inside a car in Market Segment 38.7, Auto components and EV batteries, in Industry Vertical 38, Automotive and mobility.)

Microchip Technology

with engineers in Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, and Renesas Electronics, the Japanese company, with engineers in Bengaluru, make microcontrollers. They are used in everything from washing machines to cars.

Touch, displays and small AI chips

Synaptics Inc.

with engineers in Bengaluru, makes the chips behind touchpads, displays and connected devices.

Alif Semiconductor

makes microcontrollers that run small AI models.

Bigendiansemi, in Bengaluru, is another company in this area.

The AI model in the microcontroller.

Small AI models now run on microcontrollers that cost less than a hundred rupees and use very little power. A sensor can recognise the sound of a failing bearing. A camera can count people without sending a picture anywhere. The chip makers are adding AI engines to their smallest chips. The design work, much of it in India, is shifting towards the software that fits an AI model into them.

That is the market for chips that sense, power and control: microcontrollers, analog and power chips, sold by the billion and used for decades. India has designed them for longer than any other kind of chip.

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What semiconductor and chip design companies hire for.

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