Industry overview
What is shaping semiconductor
The semiconductor and electronics manufacturing ecosystem is expanding, bringing new fabs, design centres and suppliers. Talent, supplier readiness and policy support decide its pace.
- New manufacturing capacity needs a local supplier base
- Design and fab talent is in high demand
- Policy incentives shape investment decisions
Client background
A semiconductor design centre, working in Hyderabad. Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.
- Organisation
- A semiconductor design centre
- Sector
- Semiconductor
- Team engaged
- IT & Development
- Services
- Cybersecurity services, Cloud & DevOps services, IT consulting
Client challenge
The design centre held valuable intellectual property for global clients, who required strict security controls and evidence during audits. Engineers worked across several client programmes, and access had grown informally over time, so some people could see data from projects they no longer worked on.
Research objectives
- Deliver on the brief: securing design data at a chip design centre.
- Design around the real needs of engineers.
- Define requirements and success criteria the solution would be tested against.
- Deliver a reliable, secure solution the team can run and extend.
Target audience
The work focused on 300 engineers.
- engineers300
Audiences we typically reach in semiconductor
Design and manufacturing companiesComponent suppliersEngineers and studentsB2B buyersIndustry bodies
Geographic coverage
Coverage: Hyderabad. Market: India.
- India
Research methodology
An iterative delivery approach: discovery, design, build and test in short cycles, with the client reviewing each step.
- 1Brief
- 2Security assessment
- 3Access control redesign
- 4Backup and recovery
- 5Insight
We assessed infrastructure, access rights and data flows, implemented role-based access, multi-factor authentication, secure remote access and monitored, tested backups, and prepared documentation for client audits. Changes were introduced in stages with engineering leads, and secure remote access was tested with distributed teams before being rolled out to everyone.
Cybersecurity servicesCloud & DevOps servicesIT consulting
Sampling strategy
- engineers
- 300
- Users and stakeholders from every affected team took part in discovery workshops and acceptance testing.
Data collection
- Requirements were gathered through workshops, process walk-throughs and a review of existing systems and data.
Data quality & validation
- Peer code review on every change
- Automated and manual testing
- User-acceptance testing with the client
- Release checklist and rollback plan
Data analysis
- Usage and performance monitoring after launch
- Defect and support-ticket trends
- Process time before and after
Key findings
- Clear security documentation also shortened onboarding for new client programmes, which often required evidence of controls before work could begin.
Security designed around engineers’ workflows avoided slowing down design work.
Recommendations
- Build on the core insight: security designed around engineers’ workflows avoided slowing down design work.
- Focus effort where the evidence was strongest: clear security documentation also shortened onboarding for new client programmes, which often required evidence of controls before work could begin.
- Re-measure after the changes to confirm the effect.
Business impact
- The centre passed client security audits with fewer findings and gained confidence in protecting sensitive designs.
What changed in the business as a result of the work. Impact is described qualitatively.
Deliverables & next steps
- Deployed solution with documentation and handover
- Support and maintenance plan
- Repeat the measure after changes are in place to track progress.
- A natural follow-on question: how effective are policy incentives?
Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.