A Silicon Valley in Pakistan?

Letter May 10, 2011
Pakistan was the first country in Asia to produce silicon from the local sands.

LAHORE: This letter is in response to an article published in your newspaper on May 9 on creating a Silicon Valley in Pakistan. Fantastical as it may sound, this is possible if all ingredients are in place. Pakistan was the first country in Asia to produce silicon from the local sands. An Institute of Silicon Technology was formed in the early eighties. Also, Quaid-i-Azam University has an excellent electronics department which was once headed by Dr Zuberi, an eminent scientist, and it produced world-class research.

I came to Pakistan in the early nineties after being a part of the Intel team that developed the manufacturing process of the famous Pentium microprocessor. The aim was to develop the first Silicon foundry in the country. More than 10 years of solid work has gone into this effort. The time is now ripe. The ICT (information and communication technology) Fund with the ministry of information technology has the necessary allocation and the programme can be revived again.

Dr Farid A Malik

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11th, 2011.