Now, High-Tech Work Is Going Abroad

By JAMES FLANIGAN
Published: November 17, 2005

Millions of low-technology jobs, from textile production to corporate call centers, have migrated to Asian countries like India and China in recent years. Now, though, high technology is increasingly coming up for grabs, 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.