HCL Infosystems to raise $171 Million for future growth
Bangalore: In order to fuel the future growth of the company, HCL Infosystems, an ICT system integration company has announced that its board has approved to raise additional funds to the tune of $171 million (Rs. 825 crore). The funds will be raised through equity shares or equity linked securities and Convertible Warrants.
The funds to be raised from issuing Convertible Warrants will not exceed $67 million (Rs. 325 crore), including premium to promoters. In addition, equity shares or equity linked securities or a combination of both will be issued in the domestic or international offerings or Qualified Institutional Placements (QIP) for a value of up to $104 million (Rs. 500 crore) including premium.
"We intend to raise funds to augment our long term resources for future growth, including investing in expansion of our existing and new businesses, development of infrastructure and possible acquisitions in India or abroad, currently we have not identified or entered into an agreement for any acquisition for which we intend to raise such funds," said Sandeep Kanwar, Chief Finance Officer, HCL Infosystems.
Over the past few years, the company has focused on transforming itself from being a product centric company to a system integration and services firm. Over last one year the company has announced plans to enter into a number of business verticals including 14 System integration domains, software product development and Pan India services infrastructure among others.
Cognizant offers outsourcing services from Phoenix
The company plans to hire 100 full-time professionals in the next 12 months, drawing talent from the local market and academic community, it said in a statement. With this, the company will have a total headcount of 400 in Phoenix. Phoenix is one of Cognizant's six delivery centres in the U.S. and offers application development, application maintenance, testing, and related services.Cognizant's Phoenix BPO centre will initially provide claims processing services for one of the largest healthcare plans in the U.S.
"With this expansion, we are able to offer clients U.S.-based delivery capability across all our major service offerings," said Francisco D'Souza, President and Chief Executive of Cognizant.
In addition to Phoenix, Cognizant delivers BPO services from local, regional and global centres in the U.S., Eastern Europe, India and China.
IBM to build next-generation chips with DNA
In the past few years, chipmakers have been able to make tinier and powerful products, but this advancement has pushed the limits of manufacturing techniques. According to IBM, The revolutionary method, developed at its Almaden Research Center in California and the California Institute of Technology, can help it to make computer chips from the molecule, by arranging DNA structures on the surface of manufactured semiconductor material. Microchips are mainly used in computers, mobile phones and a broad range of electronic devices and, as chipmakers compete to develop ever-smaller chips at cheaper prices, designers are struggling to cut costs.
Spike Narayan, Research Manager, IBM said, "The biological structures like DNA actually offer some very reproducible, repetitive kinds of patterns that we can actually leverage in semiconductor processes. The combination of this directed self-assembly with today's fabrication technology for high-resolution positioning of nano-objects eventually can lead to substantial savings in the most expensive and challenging part of the chip making process." This combination can also help processor designers to keep pace with Moore's Law - the 40-plus-year-old prediction by Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on a chip will double every two years.
The cost involved in shrinking features to improve performance is a limiting factor in keeping pace with Moore's Law and a concern across the semiconductor industry. Currently, the semiconductor industry is able to make processors using 22 nanometer manufacturing technology. IBM is also looking for the DNA to act as scaffolds or miniature circuit boards for the highly precise assembly of chip components, like nanotubes, nanowires and nanoparticles. After using this technique, manufacturers are likely to build 'significantly smaller' chips than has been possible with current semiconductor fabrication technology.