Manop Thamsiriannut, 36, is co-founder of Silicon Craft Technology Co on Chaeang Wattana Road in Bangkok. The firm comprises 10 Thai chip designers, seven of whom are Silicon Valley veterans drawn back home two years ago by the government's Reverse Brain Drain programme.
Manop and company are now busy with the creation of tiny chips that will shortly go into your e-citizen cards or your pets or livestock - or even crocodiles.
Manop, who earned his master's and bachelor's degrees in electronics from Canada's Carleton University and King Mongkut Institute of Technology, spent nearly a decade in North America's chip-design industry.
From 1993 to 2000, he worked for Mitel Semiconductor, PMG Sierra and EXAR, where he was its design-engineering manager.
Shortly after, he was recruited by Thailand's National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) to head its chip-design incubator programme for providing support to new start-ups in the area.
In December 2002, he and other Silicon Valley returnees decided to set up a company themselves to show how such a venture might work.
"When the premier came here a couple of months ago, he strongly encouraged us to go ahead with the design of chips that could be used in what is called e-citizen cards - an all-in-one card that could combine our ID card, driver's licence, Bt30-healthcare card, passport, or even ATM and credit cards.
"We're waiting for the final specifications [from the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology] and hope to come up with a design later this year," said Manop. In fact, he has already created a prototype of a 64-byte chip for a Nectec access card that could be upgraded to a super-smart chip for e-citizenship, which will see a wide range of government services provided electronically in the near future.
Thaksin has said that next year the government will start replacing the old ID cards with new chip-embedded cards containing personal data to be used for multiple applications.
The new cards will be able to store information on social security and healthcare, act as proof of identification and as a driver's licence, and provide access to the Internet and e-government services.
The cards will have a 13-digit ID number and can also be used to make digital payments.
Finland, Italy, Estonia and Malaysia have already introduced smart ID cards for their citizens. Besides e-citizen cards, Manop is working on tagging devices using the RFID (radio frequency identification) chip for various applications.
"Some export markets for our poultry and livestock have started requiring more humane methods of raising chicken or pigs.
"That means we need an open field to raise these animals instead of having them in enclosures. To do so, we need to have a tiny chip inserted into each of them to serve as a tagging or ID device that records all their vital information such as age, type of feed, health and vaccination data," he said.
In addition to complying with regulations in foreign markets, RFID chips will also help maximise output and increase efficiency in disease control. "Another application for RFID chips is for identifying domestic pets, especially expensive dogs. We could develop tagging devices that certify their origin and serve as an authentication device.
"In the near future, expensive watches such as Rolex will also contain such a chip for authentication purposes," Manop added.
For humans, some foreign countries have started inserting the tiny chip under the skin of patients for health-monitoring purposes.
"We're also looking at chips to be used as warehouse labels to replace the current barcode system. Chips will store more vital information than barcodes for distributors, thus increasing their efficiency in the retail industry," he said.
Silicon Craft Technology Co is positioning itself as a niche player with its initial focus on developing chips for domestic demand.
"In fact, IC [integrated circuit] design and layout are at the heart of the electronic industry, generating 40-60 per cent added value compared to only 10-15 per cent for IC packaging and manufacturing, currently the backbone of our electronic sector," said Manop.
Quelle: The Nation
