Indonesian consumer electronics company, PT Hartono Istana Teknologi – more famously known as its primary brand, Polytron – has recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Belgian nanoelectronics R&D company IMEC (Interuniversity Microelectrics Centre) for the purpose of providing Indonesian youths trainings in semiconductor chips design.
According to the company’s representative, Joegianto, in a media briefing held on November 14, 2023, Indonesia is still lacking talents on semiconductor technology, a situation of which could hinder future investments for local electronics industry. The company therefore tries to respond to that problem – Joegianto claimed – by providing chip design trainings for students of vocational schools up to universities.
Training’s curriculum is being formulated by the company in cooperation with thirteen local universities including Bandung Institute of Technology, Surabaya Institute of Technology, Gadjah Mada University and Bina Nusantara University. The training itself will be carried out by a non-profit foundation established by companies, and will be provided to students free of charges, funded by donations from both the government and private companies.
While Joegianto admitted that currently it is still too costly to initiate domestic manufacturing of semiconductor chips and thus production will instead be outsourced to foundries abroad, the main objective of the planned trainings is to build company’s portfolios of semiconductor chip designs. The company, according to Joegianto, fully realized the real value of intellectual property rights ownership on the design, which is much higher than the value of the actual chip itself.
In the future, the company envisioned itself as licensing its IPs on semiconductor chip designs to other manufacturers domestic and abroad. The training is planned to start in 2024 as the company already sets the target of having 50 up to 100 chip designers in the next five years.
Polytron was established as PT Indonesian Electronic & Engineering in 1975 in the small town of Kudus, Central Java Province, in cooperation with Dutch electronics company Philips as a technology transfer arrangement. The company is part of an Indonesian conglomerates Djarum Group, and was the group’s first undertaking outside tobacco industry. Television sets has always been its backbone product, along with other product lines such as audio system, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, up to smartphones.
Aside from two manufacturing plants in Kudus and Demak, both in Central Java, the company also maintains a research and development division that currently employs up to five hundred researchers in various technology fields.
Intellectual property rights protection on integrated circuit layout design in Indonesia is currently regulated under Law no. 32 of 2000 concerning Integrated Circuit Layout Design (DTLST), and is administered by the Directorate of Patent, Integrated Circuit Layout Design and Trade Secrets of the Directorate General of Intellectual Property, Ministry of Laws and Human Rights of the Republic of Indonesia.