US-based Cypress Semiconductor Corporation said on Monday that it had planned to nearly double its workforce in India to about 315 by the year-end. The company currently employs 160 people.

"We are doubling our team in India to 315 by the year end with about 40 people at Hyderabad and the rest in our Bangalore design centre," Cypress Semiconductor president and CEO T J Rodgers told reporters.

Outsourcing and India: Complete Coverage

Cypress, which has invested $20 million since starting business nine years ago in India, plans an additional $5 million for capacity expansion.

Rodgers said the company's Indian team had more engineers than the one in the US, adding the $1 billion Cypress' most complex logic chip, its packet over SONET Integrated Circuit framer with 15 million transistors, was designed by the company in India.

About 30 per cent of its global workforce are Indian nationals, he said, adding "this will grow over time".

Terming the ongoing outcry in the US against IT outsourcing to India as "foolish discussion", Rodgers said when there were three times more engineers in India than in America, "you have no option but to outsource".