A MoU has been signed between Conexant senior vice-president Dennis Packard and Microtek director Anil Gupta whereby Conexant will provide Delhi-based Microtek free access to its laboratories and facilities in USA and India for design and development of products based on its technology. This will enable the Rs 300-crore Microtek to introduce a range of `smart modems' based on Conexant technology later this month.

The Delhi-based company has identified networking and communication products as a major focus area. With Conexant, formerly known as Rockwell Semiconductor Systems, Microtek will launch a full range of products based on the V.34 and V.90 internal and external analogue modems. These will be marketed under the brand name Micronet.With Rockwell's V.90 chipset technology in the seventh generation modems, Conexant today claims 60 per cent share in the international modem market for chipsets.

Among other things, Conexant is presently working on the ADSL technology which will make it possible to have a telephonic conversation and data transfer to take place simultaneously on the same telephone line with data speeds that will be several times faster. As a result of the alliance, Microtek will launch cable modems, LAN cards, switches and hubs.

``We will initially target the retail user segments like small enterprises and small office and home office for external modems and PC assemblers for the internal modems. We have already set up a state-of-the-art facility for the manufacture of these products and plan to expand it further with fully automated robotic machines at a project cost of Rs 5 crore,' said Gupta.