India is positioning itself as a formidable player in the semiconductor industry, a move prompted by the global chip shortages experienced during the Covid pandemic. Arnob Roy, co-founder of Tejas Networks—a telecom equipment provider based in Bangalore—underscored the critical nature of reliable chip supply for telecommunications. Tejas Networks actively designs telecom chips that cater to massive data volumes, differing substantially from consumer chips.
Despite its prowess in chip design, India currently relies on overseas manufacturers for production. This dependency highlighted vulnerabilities in the semiconductor supply chain during the pandemic, leading the Indian government to strategize on building a domestic semiconductor ecosystem to free itself from global supply chain fragility.
Amitesh Kumar Sinha, from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, explained that India's semiconductor ambitions are not just about making chips, but also about cultivating a competitive manufacturing process. The country possesses about 20% of the world's semiconductor engineers, a testament to its design capabilities.
However, the real challenge lies in wafer fabrication, dominated by companies in Taiwan. To counter that, India is gearing up to enhance its capabilities in the outsourced assembly stage, which involves packaging and testing the chips. This ambitious strategy is already taking shape with Kaynes Semicon—the first company to announce the establishment of a semiconductor plant—with a focus on packaging chips crucial for telecommunications and automotive industries.
As India embarks on this journey, experts emphasize the importance of building a supportive ecosystem to nurture local manufacturing talent and infrastructure. With companies like Tejas Networks and Kaynes Semicon leading the way, India’s semiconductor aspirations may soon translate into a greater local supply of chips, bolstering the economies and industries across the nation.
