Centre To Finalize Companies Eligible For Fab Plant Sops By December

Proposals for setting up such projects started coming in after the government announced the Semicon India Program in December to establish the country as a global electronics and semiconductor hub.

The programme has generated considerable interest, with companies, including a proposed venture of miner Vedanta Group and the world’s largest contract electronics maker Foxconn, Singapore-based IGSS Ventures Pte, and ISMC proposing $13.6 billion investments to manufacture chips as of February end.

Vedanta Group has partnered with Taiwan’s Foxconn to make semiconductors in India, as the two look to capitalize on the chip shortage and benefit from the government’s incentive towards chipmaking in the country.

Proposals have been taken from three broad categories of semiconductor companies.

“First, there are the big silicon fabrication and the display fabrication companies, second is the compound semiconductors and assembly, testing, marking, and packaging category, while the third category is design. The applications for the second and third categories are an ongoing process, while in the first category, the option to take in more applications will be open in the next 5-8 months,” Vaishnaw said in Bengaluru on Friday on the sidelines of the three-day ‘SemiconIndia Conference 2022’ event that started on 29 April.

The minister added that the world’s leading companies are actively engaged in exploring the semiconductor industry in India.

Vaishnaw said that developing the semiconductor industry in the country is not a sprint, but a marathon, and a major differentiator for India was its talent pool.

“We are prepared. We understand that many countries are offering incentives. We also offer substantial incentives, but the big differentiator is that we have spoken to many of the CEOs of global majors, that we are committed to creating and augmenting our talent pool by 85,000 semiconductor professionals over the next 10 years,” he said.

In a virtual speech at the event, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India aims to establish itself as a key partner in the global semiconductor supply chain.

“We want to create a world-class semiconductor ecosystem in India, riding on our sincerity and execution. We aim to work in this direction based on the principles of high tech, high quality and high reliability,” Modi said.

He said almost all of the top 25 semiconductor design companies in the world have set up design and research and development centres in India. Additionally, Modi said the government’s measures would transform the manufacturing sector.

A recent report by the Indian Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA) pegged India’s growth in the semiconductor market to hit between $85-100 billion, accounting for about 17% of the global estimated revenue of $600 billion in 2030.

As companies worldwide face a critical shortage amid growing usage of chips from toys to toothbrushes, the major chip production hubs, including the US, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and China, are struggling to churn out enough of them to meet demand. Semiconductor equipment manufacturing company Applied Materials also announced that it invested $50 million to purchase land for an R&D lab over the next five years.

“In the coming years, we intend to expand infrastructure and build a lab, followed by a campus around it. The lab is the missing piece in India, as we already have a lot of engineers,” said Srinivas Satya, country president and managing director, Applied Materials India, at SemiconIndia.

“There is no instant gratification in the semiconductor ecosystem. It is about steadily building the confidence and capabilities that will stand the test of time for the next 25 years,” said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and information technology.