India must manufacture chips for data security: Telecom Secretary

Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan on Wednesday said that India cannot remain secure in terms of data and save the excess outgo in royalty payments unless it manufactures its own chips and takes a lead in the core Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

She was speaking after the unveiling of India's first indigenous semiconductor chips by a Bengaluru based company, Signalchip, for 4G/LTE and 5G NR modems for telecom base stations.

These chips put India into the elite group of countries which own this widely used fundamental technology. Signalchip's semiconductor chips are for use in base stations and the customers of such chips are telecom equipment manufacturers.

The combined multi-standard system-on-chip (SoC) can serve as a base station chipset for a wide range of form factors, from low-cost indoor small cells to high performance base stations, said Himamshu Khasnis, founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Signalchip.

Sridhar Vembu, founder and promoter of Zoho which funded SignalChip, said the chips are currently manufactured in Taiwan.

Sundararajan said that data security is the paramount concern in the world today and India cannot remain secure in terms of data, unless it manufactures its own chips.

These home-grown chips are important from a strategic, economic and security point of view.

The Telecom Secretary said that Signalchip will lead to a whole new architecture of tower building, mainly in the light of emission complaints and growing environmental concerns.

The government recently cleared the new electronics policy to boost electronics manufacturing in the country.

--IANS

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