Want to be significant player in global semicon value chain: Chandrasekhar

The government aims to ensure that India not only accelerates the manufacturing ecosystem in the electronics and semiconductor space but also becomes a significant player in the evolving global value chain, stated Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

“This is to ensure we not only have a significant footprint in the manufacturing space but become a go-to partner for the enterprises, consumers, and governments of the world in terms of design innovation for the systems of the future,” Chandrasekhar said at the IESA Vision Summit 2024 event in Bengaluru.

As a logical expansion of the technology and startup ecosystem in India, he stated that the government has created a framework to expand the semiconductor ecosystem to ensure that future systems will deliver the required performance in a digital world.

Chandrasekhar mentioned the government is expected to make a few more announcements. “Very shortly, we will have an India Semiconductor Research Centre that will be a hub for semiconductor research and innovation both at a device and transistor level to materials and science and physics,” he added.

Chandrasekhar further added that the government will soon be launching a programme called ‘Digital India Future Labs’ programme that will be a collaboration between government labs, startups, and large enterprises in the R&D and electronics space to foster innovation in electronics design.

The semiconductor market in India is expected to grow to $100 billion by 2030 from the current value of about $40 billion, according to the India Electronics & Semiconductor Association (IESA).

While manufacturing of chips is a good start, India should focus on “design and productisation” to move up the value chain, Ashok Chandok, President, IESA told Business Standard, on the sidelines of the IESA Vision Summit.

"That will provide value addition and offer more business opportunities to the Indian players that will create more intellectual properties (IPs) within the country. That means, the companies which are doing these activities, would have better profit margins. Pure electronics manufacturing will always have limited value addition and earnings,” Chandok added.

Large global semiconductor companies have been investing heavily in India lately. Last year, Micron Technology set up a semiconductor assembly and test plant in Gujarat with a total investment of $2.75 billion. Micron stated the plant will create up to 5,000 new direct jobs and 15,000 community jobs over the next several years. Semiconductor equipment maker Applied Materials also plans to invest $400 million in the next four years to build a collaborative engineering centre in Bengaluru.