Govt Equipping More Than 100 Colleges With Chip Design Tools

As part of its efforts to develop talents for chip industry, the government is reportedly equipping more than 100 colleges with electronic design automation (EDA) tools from Siemens EDA, Synopsys and Cadence.

Country heads of chip design software firms informed ET that training with these tools ensures students are industry-ready upon graduation.

Siemens has been working with the IT ministry to establish an EDA tools grid as part of the design-linked incentive scheme for chip startups. Similarly, Synopsys has partnered with IIT Bombay, Indian Institute of Science and Jadavpur University through the Synopsys Academic & Research Alliances (SARA) programme to cultivate talent for the chip industry and address workforce shortages. Besides, 350 engineering colleges in India have access to Cadence’s suite of EDA technologies.

Globally, only a few companies produce these essential tools, and no chip can be designed without their aid.

Ruchir Dixit, country manager, Siemens EDA, told ET that India needs a skilled workforce that can work for the proposed chip units.

Dixit mentioned that the government’s Chips to Startups (C2S) initiative has provided over 100 academic institutions in the country with EDA tools, including Siemens EDA.

Launched in January 2022, C2S aims to train 85,000 individuals over five years in very large-scale integration and embedded system design. In the first round, 103 institutions and startups, including the Indian Institutes of Technology at Kanpur, Bombay, Roorkee, and Dharwad, were selected for projects like the global navigation receiver SoC for NAVIC and Global Positioning System (GPS).

Siemens has been working with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to establish an EDA tools grid as part of the design-linked incentive (DLI) scheme for startups in the semiconductor and electronics domain.

“We’ve provided our software at a donation price to colleges. This saves colleges the trouble of chasing for these tools individually, and it also allows the suite of tools to train multiple people at the same time,” Dixit told ET.

Speaking with ET, Raja Subramaniam, country head of Synopsys India, said that there’s going to be a tremendous shortage of talented manpower globally by 2030, citing a Goldman Sachs report.

So, the government wants to harness the potential of Indian engineering colleges, specifically in electronics and communication engineering.

Semiconductor chip design involves a series of steps, starting from design creation and verification to emulation, prototyping, and manufacturing. Training with these tools ensures that students graduate industry-ready and well-informed. Access to such technologies supports the incubation of startups, allowing them to choose the specific tools tailored to their circuit design needs, whether digital, analog, or mixed signal design, added Subramaniam.

Jaswinder Ahuja, MD at Cadence Design Systems, India, told ET that the tools, usually expensive, are now available at a highly subsidized rate through the C2S program, which includes over 100 tools. Designing a chip for a mobile phone is a complex task, requiring large teams and one to two years of effort.

Last year in August, the government invited another round of applications under the C2S programme of 100 more academic institutions, research, and development (R&D) organisations, startups, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

The Centre is also working on developing the ecosystem to produce the equipment required for manufacturing semiconductors as well as gases required in a chip fabrication plant.

A few days back Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the government wants 10 chipsets to be produced entirely in India, including design, fabrication and packaging.

It is pertinent to mention that the Centre approved the Semicon India programme in 2021, with an outlay of INR 76,000 Cr, to develop the semiconductor and display manufacturing ecosystem in the country.

Besides, the government is also focusing on making the 16,000 gases required in a chip fabrication plant in the country, he said.

As part of its push to promote the semiconductor ecosystem, the union cabinet recently approved three semiconductor proposals of private companies, entailing a total investment of INR 1.26 Lakh Cr. One of these proposals was of the Tata Group to set up the country’s first semiconductor fab plant in Gujarat in partnership with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC).

The government’s push for the semiconductor ecosystem has already resulted in a sharp increase in the number of such startups in the country.