India-made 3 nanometre chips likely by 2032, says Ashwini Vaishnaw

India targets indigenously designed 3nm chips by 2032, with plans to boost fabless startups and make the country a global semiconductor design hub

India is working towards indigenously designed and manufactured cutting-edge 3-nanometre (nm) node chips by 2032, Union Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Tuesday.

 

Vaishnaw was speaking after his meeting with the 24 chip design companies and startups that have been given the go-ahead under the flagship Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme.

 

In the coming years, nearly 50 per cent of all semiconductor design work will be done in India, Vaishnaw said, adding that these cutting-edge chips will be used in a wide array of products, including modern smartphones, devices, defence systems, space technologies, and computers.

   

The Union minister also expressed hope that individual semiconductor engineers working for global companies would become entrepreneurs in the years to come and start fabless semiconductor design companies, thereby enabling themselves to own the intellectual property rights to these advanced technologies.

 

“In the next version of the semiconductor mission, we plan to get at least 50 fabless companies going in our country,” he said.

 

During the next round of the India Semiconductor Mission, the government will focus on giving incentives to startups and companies working on six major areas of chips, namely compute, radio frequency (RF), networking, power, sensor, and memory, Vaishnaw said.

 

This, he said, will allow companies in India to control the development of chips for more than 75 per cent of the total technology products available today.

 

“We will encourage academia and industry to come up with new ideas, new thoughts, new solutions in these six major categories. As we go into 2029, we will have a major capability of manufacturing and designing the chips, which are required practically in 70-75 per cent of all applications in our country," he said.

 

Vaishnaw also asked the companies and startups present to provide feedback on various aspects of the first phase of the DLI scheme, along with suggestions for the second phase.

 

“Our DLI 2.0, which will be a part of the Semicon 2.0, will have this clear road map defined for us. Our tapeout facilities for the 180 nm range will be from SCL Mohali. Below that, up to 28 nm will be at the Dholera fab,” he said.