EEtimes has a write up on the Wipro story. Very very well written. Talks about how it all started, and how it metamorphosed to what it is today. My favourite exerpt:
The government policy shift led Wipro to extend its expertise in designing printed-circuit boards to developing its own semiconductor blocks and ASICs, in order to address the needs of its new telecom and PC customers.
“ASICs were new to us, but we figured there was no magic to it,” said Valavi. “We put a group and tool flow together, started some basic designs for standard interfaces, and implemented them in such a way that people could put them in their chips, so we could license the blocks to others.”
Within 18 months, Wipro had USB and FireWire blocks it could license to other companies or use in its own ASICs. It has nearly 90 FireWire licensees today.
Read the full article here.