Robert Bosch India Ltd, the wholly owned subsidiary of the German major Robert Bosch GmbH, has set up a sophisticated testing facility for designing integrated circuits (ICs) and chip devices.

Located in the subsidiary's VLSI (very large scale integration) design centre here, the Rs.51-million facility has a clean-room with a purity of 100,000 standard required for validating the tester software used for testing in-house designed circuits and semiconductor devices.

"The facility will be used to design 200-mm chips and ICs that will be produced on a mass scale at our new fabrication (fab) plant, being set up at Reutlingen in Germany at an estimated cost of euro 550 million," said Robert Bosch India managing director Walter Grote here Thursday.

The electronic designed ICs and micro electronic controllers will be manufactured at the German plant to meet the specific requirements of automotive markets in India and other emerging countries like China and Brazil.

"We see a huge potential for electronic controls, sensors and other applications that will be incorporated in passenger cars to be designed and developed in the subcontinent for domestic as well as export markets in the near future.

"With safety, clean environmental and fuel efficient standards becoming a norm worldwide, automobile manufacturers in the region are bound to adopt the western or European standards to enhance their products and service offerings," Grote said.

Though Indian automobiles in the luxury segment conform to the Euro III or Bharat II emission norms and offer a host of microchips, passenger cars made in the lower segments (A and B categories) do not provide safety features or electronic systems or controls.

Going forward, the facility will be used to test chips designed for other applications in industrial, consumer goods, building technology, process consulting, mechanical engineering, VLSI and IT services.

"The facility will be expanded into a full-fledged semiconductor design centre over time. For achieving global competitiveness, the clean-room can also be used to leverage the expertise developed in engine control unit design and testing and VLSI services," Grote pointed out.

To be used extensively for meeting the in-house requirements of the Bosch group worldwide, the facility will also create software and equipment for testing ICs and electronic design services across verticals.

As part of the euro 42-billion Bosch group, the Indian subsidiary provides engineering and non-engineering services to the parent company worldwide, employing about 3,500 techies.

As Bosch's largest software development facility outside Germany, the IT subsidiary generated export revenue of Rs.3.95 billion and is projected to grow by 30-40 percent by the end of the current year to post a turnover of about Rs.5-5.5-billion.