With economic environment in traditional markets of the US and Europe being weak, American chipmaker Texas Instruments (TI) is focusing on emerging economies?India in particular?to drive growth. India and the Dallas, Texas-based company have had a close relationship over the years. TI was the first global technology company to establish its presence in India with a R&D facility in Bangalore in August 1985. India has been a great resource for TI for talent, leadership and innovation, says Kent Novak, senior vice-president and general manager of DLP products, TI. For a layman, digital light processing (DLP) is the projection technology that powers projectors, HDTVs, digital cinema and many new innovative devices all over the world. In an interview with Ankita Rai, he talks about the business opportunities in India. Excerpts:

Tell us about DLP technology? What percentage of revenue does DLP contribute to TI?

DLP technology from TI is a precise, digital imaging chip that powers today?s best projectors, HDTVs, digital cinema systems and other devices for medical, printing and security

industry. It powers virtually half of all projectors used worldwide. Our DLP Pico cellphone projection technology is an unique imaging innovation. It is a cellphone with a projector and is leading the way in portable projector technology.

We don?t reveal details of segment revenue contribution, but between 5 to 10% of Texas Instruments? revenue comes from DLP.

How do you see the growth of 3D cinema in India? Is DLP also into 3D cameras?

We do have the capabilities to do it. But we are not doing it as of now. We are not focused on 3D capture technology for consumer camera. Our 3D technology is focused on industrial applications, that is, 3D fingerprints, 3D face recognition and 3D measurements.

Majority of cinemas across UK are 3D-capable. Interests and revenues from 3D movies is growing, especially driven by Avatar, which was the highest grossing 3D movies of all time. This brings the focus not only on digital cinema

convergence that is from film to digital cinema, but also on digital cinemas being 3D-enabled.

There is opportunity in 3D not only in cinema but also in education. We want to move into emerging and smaller markets. Our focus is to bring 3D cinemas and 3D education in emerging markets.

How is DLP technology playing a role in the education sector?

Teaching science, technology, and mathematics in 3D is more effective than traditional methods. 3D makes concepts, architecture and geometry easy to understand and reduces interest deficit disorders among students.

If you look at the projectors that are deployed in classrooms in India, we have 65% market share. Many brands like LG, Acer are are working with us and the majority of technology is in DLP. We are working with Educomp on 3D technology in education in India.

Will DLP enable hardware and software costs to come down?

There is hardly any additional hardware cost if DLP technology is used for 3D. While competitive technologies

require two different projects for 3D image, DLP uses only one projector and can produce good quality 3D image. As the adoption and network increases and as we have more vendors with free content, the software cost will come down. It is important to have local content and India is a perfect place to develop local content for 3D education. Thus, a combination of more adoptions, software partners and local 3D content provider will bring software cost down.

India has low tech penetration. Is it matured to use these technologies?

Yes, of course. If we take both government and private schools into account, there are one billion schools in

India. The opportunity lies in taking technology to government schools. As we go to more schools, the overall cost will also come down. Consider these statistics: 50,000 government schools in India have audio-visual rooms with projectors. In 2011, 10,000 schools got audio-visual rooms in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Karnataka alone. So, there is definitely a latent demand for technology here.

What are the trends that will drive mobility technology adoption here?

India is very focused on movie industry. There is interest in Hollywood content but there is also growth in local content. We see a lot of focus on digital cinema/projection. We see growth in digital projection, 3D cinema and 3D education. As India develops into a consumer market, we will see rising demand for multimedia cellphones.