High technology activities are increasingly coming up for grabs(out sourcing), and no company illustrates the speed at which corporate America can replace high-priced American talent with cheaper foreign brainpower than Conexant Systems.

Conexant, a Newport Beach, Calif., maker of the intricate microchip brains behind Internet access for home computers and satellite-connecting set-top boxes for televisions, has gone on a hiring binge for research engineers in India, a move that it says will eventually cut its overall costs by 50 percent.

"If we can get two-thirds of our product development at one-fourth the cost, we come close to cutting our overall costs in half," Mr. Decker said. In the first year of large-scale work in India, he said, Conexant reduced costs by $36 million.

Mr. Decker said that besides financial reasons the export of research jobs is motivated by a looming dearth of engineering talent in the United States. Engineers in India earn one fourth of the pay of their American counterparts, roughly $25,000 a year in salary and benefits, compared with $100,000.

Source: NYTPrashanth RaiTag(s):Outsourcing, Hi-Tech.