In the recent months, the worldwide Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) industry has been severely hit with its share of restructuring and layoffs. Sophia Antipolis was no exception, and the last illustration was the announcement by Wipro Technologies, the India-based semiconductor intellectual property (IP) vendor, that it is exploring options for the closure of its development center in Sophia Antipolis, including relocation of some employees to other Wipro centers.

The Alpes-Maritimes County has about 40 companies, 7 research centers and 2,000 engineers. "Our strength was, is and we want it to continue to be our ability to attract new companies," commented Jean-Pierre Mascarelli, vice-president of the General Council of the Alpes-Maritimes County, in his speech.

"The crisis is here, and nobody can get away from it, especially the microelectronics industry," indicated Mascarelli. "We have to make sure it does not slow us down and makes us stronger. The crisis is an opportunity that many people would do very well without but let's try to work together so that this region suffers the least and gets away as soon as possible."

There is some good news out there, said Mascarelli. He declared: "Intel has decided to settle, taking advantage of Texas Instruments' unfortunate situation. Gemalto has also announced it would develop its NFC activities. Moreover, we will soon announce the development here of an international company in the 4G area."

While Texas Instruments was indeed disengaging from some of its mobile phone activities, Intel announced the opening of a new design center in wireless technologies, reporting into its Ultra Mobility Group which is developing very low-consumption components for mobile PCs (UMPCs and MIDs). The unit aims to design RF subsystems for communicating mobile objects.

In the meantime, Gemalto and NXP concluded an agreement whereby NXP would transfer its mobile services business to Gemalto. The related unit based in Sophia Antipolis will continue to develop and market software and service solutions compliant with the MIFARE4Mobile interface specifications which manage MIFARE-based applications in Near Field Communication (NFC) mobile devices.