Govt Committed To Create Competitive Semiconductor Ecosystem: MoS IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar

The government is committed to creating a globally competitive semiconductor ecosystem, said the Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Thursday (July 28).

“The policy framework is already in place to create a vibrant component ecosystem. And if there is any need for the government to intervene and create more PLI type of schemes, we will do so,” Chandrasekhar said, addressing the media ahead of the ‘Semicon India 2023’ event in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar.

The minister also added that semiconductors form an important part of the government’s state goal of deepening and broadening India’s electronics ecosystem. “We believe as our electronics products reach global scales – which we are in the smartphone category – it will also be in the server and IT category and the wearables and hearables category,” he said.

Chandrasekhar also said the previous governments ‘failed to envision the importance of a semiconductor ecosystem in India’, adding that India missed the bus on electronics and semiconductors repeatedly for several decades.

“Fairchild semiconductors, which is the precursor to Intel, came to India in 1957 for a packaging unit and we chased them away. That packaging unit went on to become Asia’s largest packaging hub in Malaysia. We set up a fab for silicon and germanium transistors that had shut down. India’s major VLSI facility, Semi-Conductor Laboratory (SCL), perished, as a mysterious fire in 1989 halted production until 1997,” said Chandrasekhar ahead of ‘Semicon India 2023’. 

Chandrasekhar said that in 1987, India was two years behind the latest chip manufacturing technology, adding that India’s semiconductor industry is 12 generations behind the world.

The minister of state also spoke about the mushrooming of startups in the semiconductor design space. Chandrasekhar added that the government is making strides in building a curriculum to nurture talent and is supporting startups in the semiconductor ecosystem.

“Under SemiconIndia futureDESIGN, over 30 semiconductor design startups have been set up in India including some from Semiconductor leaders from Silicon Valley. Five Startups have already received government financial support and another 25 Startups are being evaluated for their proposals for the next-gen products and devices,” stated the Minister, adding that the government has partnered with the industry to create 85,000 skilled global talent.

The comments came around 19 months after the government started stressing semiconductor design and manufacturing after the global chip shortage that spiked around the same time.

Speaking at Semicon India 2023, Chandrasekhar also said India can achieve ‘in the coming Techade’ what neighbouring nations took 30 years and $200 Bn and still failed to achieve.

On his state visit to the US, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden signed an MoU on a semiconductor supply chain and innovation partnership in June to initiate coordination on semiconductor incentive programs between the two countries.

The MoU was preceded by the semiconductor major Micron announcing its first-ever $2.75 Bn ATMP (assembly, testing, marking, and packaging) project in India.