Govt to invest $30 bn in electronics, chip industry

The government of India will invest $30 billion in electronics and semiconductors Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship of India Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in his keynote address on Day 2 of the 25th edition of Bengaluru Tech Summit. “$20 billion in electronics manufacturing and design and $10 billion in semiconductor manufacturing research and design,” the Minister said.

The investment will help in creating manufacturing, packaging, verification, design and skill capacities in the country, he added.

India’s semiconductor industry is expected to touch $300 billion by 2026, growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 19%, as per a joint study by the India Electronics & Semiconductor Association (IESA) and Counterpoint Research. This will place the country alongside other major semiconductor-making countries including Taiwan, Korea and the US.

In 2021, the Union government had announced a production-linked incentive scheme for semiconductors worth Rs 76,000 crore to increase investor interest in the industry.

“I think we can be reasonably confident that by the year 2024, India would have stepped into the semiconductor manufacturing space – both in silicon manufacturing in logic and memory, and in compound semiconductors as well in terms of high power devices,” the minister said.

The government has kept aside a Rs 10,000-crore fund with matching contributions from the state government as capital for semiconductor design. “We see our goal of at least 50 to 100 semiconductor design startups in different use cases across the next one or two years,” he added.

The government will invest about Rs 10,000 crore and, along with the help of a private partner, will renovate Mohali SCL (semi-conductor laboratory) facility. India Semiconductor Research Centre will be created and co-located at the renovated Mohali facility, the Minister said. “We have offered the government here (Karnataka) the opportunity for Bengaluru to step up and set up a second India Semiconductor Research Center.”

In its phase 1 push for the semiconductor industry, the government will focus on the tech that addresses mobility or computing system.

Additionally, Chandrasekhar also said that the government will launch a dedicated programme – ‘Semicon India Future Skills’ – to groom the talent for the burgeoning industry.

“By this month’s end, we will unveil the blueprint that will go all the way from postdoc and doctorate, all the way to certification that will cover research, design, manufacturing and supply chain types of capability and talent, targeting 80,000 to 85,000 students a year,” he said. Deccan Herald