Picochip curries favour with Indian infrastructure partners

Bath-based wireless company Picochip has done a multi-million pound deal with Indian R&D company Rancore Technologies. Rancore is developing 4G basestations, and has chosen PicoChip's multicore DSP chips and interface software for the main signal processing parts of the products.

As part of the UK government's new focus on India as a political and trading partner, the deal was announced in New Delhi yesterday by business secretary Vince Cable, alongside three other deals for architectural ventures, hovercraft and outsourcing.

This took place during the week-long UK-India Government Summit, aimed at fostering business links in both directions. UK Prime Minister David Cameron told delegates that Britain’s universities, strong science sector, and expertise in defence and civil nuclear power were among the reasons that India should consider investing in the UK

The Rancore contract comes after another deal announced on Wednesday, when Picochip said it had agreed wtih Bangalore company Entuple Technologies to develop and market HSPA+ and rural femtocells and LTE technology to Indian industry and academia.

According to Picochip, the Indian mobile market will see double digit growth through to 2012, with 3G services due to launch from multiple sources over the next 18 months.