Select Committee on Welsh Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 714 - 719)

MONDAY 10 MAY 2004

PROFESSOR MOHAMMED WAHAB

  Q714  Chairman: Welcome to the Committee, Professor. For the benefit of the record, can you introduce yourself?

  Professor Wahab: My name is Mohammed Wahab and I am Managing Director of DELTA Microelectronics Ltd., a small European company, fully owned by an organisation called DELTA, Danish Electronic Light and Testing, and I am also Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Glamorgan. I am still working for the University of Glamorgan, which likes to keep me on a sabbatical for a number of years. I have been out for just over two years on sabbatical leave, providing this small inward investment.

  Q715  Albert Owen: Can you explain to the Committee the main functions of DELTA Microelectronics in Wales?

  Professor Wahab: In Wales, it represents one division of the DELTA organisation, which I would like to tell you a little bit about because it is quite interesting. I remember when DELTA Microelectronics was launched about two years ago, we had the First Minister attending the launch, and he was amazed that DELTA does not generate any profit. All of its profit is put back into the company because it does not have any shareholders. That was quite a surprise. DELTA itself emerged from the amalgamation of a number of public laboratories. Its history goes back to 1942. Over the years, and especially after the war, and with the benefit of programmes similar to the Marshall Plan, they received a lot of funding and it grew up under the name DELTA, with five major divisions covering electronic testing, software, light and optics, acoustics and microelectronics. DELTA Microelectronics in the UK is basically a subsidiary of the microelectronics division. Its main activities are concerned with the development of microelectronic solutions, basically custom chips and integration of sensors and custom chips for any customer who needs it. We are part of the supply chain and provide, develop and supply chips to any industry, from consumer to telecom to medical. DELTA looked at the market in Europe and found that, surprisingly, 40% of the activities in this field are in the UK, so it required some kind of entity in the UK to look after its interests, primarily for sales and marketing but also partly moving design activities into the UK to be able to look after customers. Obviously, Denmark is not very far and customers feel much happier when they can see the front-end designers there. At the moment, we are very small. We have not recruited our designers yet but we are in this process, trying to establish DELTA's position here. There has been business for DELTA in the past in the UK but the name is becoming familiar. I guess your next question is, why Wales? Do you want me to tell you, because it is always a mystery? It is simple. A lot of business decisions are not only made on economics. To come to the UK is an economic decision because the market is there, but to come to Wales was really knowledge of and interaction with individuals, people. I have personally worked with DELTA over a number of years within a major European project, which I put in my submission. FUSE is one of Europe's most ambitious technology transfer programmes. That interaction over a number of years led me to believe that there is a great deal they can get in Wales. They visited Wales and interacted with Welsh companies, and they felt that positioning themselves in Wales would be an advantage rather than a disadvantage. They see it as a good entrance into the UK market. I believe the role of individuals is very strong sometimes in attracting inward investment in companies, and the experience of DELTA proves that.

  Q716  Albert Owen: What proportion of your work is research and development?

  Professor Wahab: I can say that almost all of it is research and development because we provide solutions to people who want to make new products. We design a custom chip, and we are involved with research as well as with all development. To find a best solution for an intelligence sensor requires research and development. We do not sell our own products. We provide a service to companies and supply them with components that they sell themselves or integrate into their own products.

  Q717  Albert Owen: You do research for the larger DELTA company in the UK—for them as well.

  Professor Wahab: The company is based in Denmark. We are the only UK presence they have. But for all the UK customers we find solutions, and part of the work goes back to Denmark to be done there, because there are 300 people in Denmark and only three of us here.

  Q718  Albert Owen: How easy is it to get qualified staff to your company, and does your position within Wales hinder or help you?

  Professor Wahab: At the moment we do not have a problem because we are not large-scale, but I think there is a shortage of qualified staff, especially when it comes to staff who are capable of designing silicon chips, and those people command a premium. Having said that, I have noticed in the last couple of years there is interest from staff with a Welsh background to come back to Wales. Those people went out into the wider world and have experience of working in companies in similar areas in Bracknell, Reading and around London, and they have found that the quality of life is not as good as in Wales and are willing to come back. There is a lot to be done to attract staff into Wales—not those who know about Wales. We do not enough to advertise the benefits of working in Wales—the quality of life and the cost, because at the end of the day I do not believe we should restrict our improvement to people who are already here. One of the fundamentals of innovation is the movement of knowledge and ideas, and that can only happen if people come from different parts of the world, or at least from our neighbouring regions. They bring new ideas and develop innovative products and processes.

  Q719  Dr Francis: Moving to links with universities, you have already described your link with Glamorgan. Do you have any other links with other universities in Wales?

  Professor Wahab: We do have discussions with other universities. For instance, we are working closely with the Porritt Centre in Swansea. They have an interest in moving more to the commercial side to areas where they are close to the products, and they are consulting us on that. We were even discussing the potential for them to help one of our agency customers. Glamorgan is in a different situation because I have been with Glamorgan for the last 16 years. I established their centre for electronic product engineering so my relationship with Glamorgan is very organic. I do not think it is like any other relationship. Apart from that, we have fewer links with other universities. They are not as strong as we would like them to be. In the future as projects materialise in the UK, we would like to get involved. I firmly believe universities have a major role to play. They are not playing it at the moment but they could get more and more involved at the product end of the R&D cycle.


 
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