India is fast emerging as a global semiconductor hub, driving innovation across industries, building swadeshi chip ecosystems, empowering youth with industry-ready skills, and fuelling economic growth through cutting-edge research, manufacturing, and startup initiatives for a self-reliant Viksit Bharat@2047
In today's era, semiconductor chips form the foundation of contemporary technological innovation that finds potential application in drones, electric vehicles, smartphones, high-performance computers (HPC), quantum computers, super computers, robots, high-power semiconductor lasers and across different sectors, starting from aerospace and defense, agriculture, healthcare, telecom and automotive sectors. India's chip market is a boon and boosts many diversified sectors which includes local and global markets.
India is already aiming to make a big move in the semiconductor technologies through building Vocal for Local Semiconductor Chips in motherland that allows to capture data in real time and send data with ultra high-speed communication and high bandwidth. In order to meet the demands of the semiconductor industry, there are variety of industry ready skill program in India which are offered through various platforms like futureskills prime, Swayam NPTEL, Virtual Labs, Electronics and ICT Academy, NASSCOM for reskilling young talent pool and make India a semiconductor savvy nation. India is aiming to build its own submicron and deep submicron affordable technology — Swadeshi System on Chip (SoC) thereby able to accomplish optimisation in space, energy consumption and cost as well.
From Cleanroom to Customer
India has boldly begun its successful journey in semiconductor domain through the launch of India Semiconductor Mission that led to the ongoing establishment of world's largest and prestigious cutting-edge semiconductor industrial powerhouse / Units across PAN India which includes the state of Uttar Pradesh. India slowly, steadily and gently made a transition from Indus valley to Semiconductor valley in the 21st century through several initiatives like National Semiconductor Mission, National Quantum Mission, National Mission for Cyber Physical Systems, Digital India, Make in India and Startup India. India's semiconductor transformation and revolution is creating big impact on economy and thereby creating enormous opportunities for young talented engineers. The establishment of semiconductor units will further enhance the employability of semiconductor talent pool across India and escalate the semiconductor economy of our nation as well.
Indian scientists and startups have built indigenous Swadeshi semiconductor products like Shakti processor and Digital RISC-V that showcase the strength of India's swadeshi semiconductor ecosystems. The in-house designed and developed semiconductor systems have led to ambitious achievement of national space mission and defence systems as well.
Programs for Semiconductor Technologies in India
The in-house research institutions in India like Semiconductor Complex LaboratoMarket semiconductorstry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, Centre for Flexible Electronics, IIT Kanpur, ChipIN Centres across different academic institutions enhanced several innovations that led to design, development and fabrication of in-house Lab to Market semiconductor products which further influenced our nation to be self-reliant and also placing our nation in global map of Global Innovation Index and spearheading in intangible investments as well.
The variety of academic learning programs such as online / short term / certification / vocational program / blended learning on semiconductor technologies offered by different institutions like Chip-design centre of National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology, under MeitY, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Indian Nanoelectronics User Program (INUP - i2i), Electronics Sector Skill Council, NASSCOM IT-ITeS and MOOC courses have opened several avenues to the academic institutions thereby allowing the students from socio-economically disadvantaged groups) (clause 3.5 of NEP 2020) to undergo hands-on practice and experiential learning to improve and upskill their knowledge in the semiconductor domain. The best practices of the program offered by institutions and industries under National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF) and National Credit Framework (NCrF) are in line with National Education Policy 2020 which facilitates achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 4).
The student and faculty members get exposure to interact with subject matter experts, visit the clean room facilities in Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Bombay and Nano research facility (NRF) at Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Delhi. NIELIT Calicut has in-house Skilled Manpower Advanced Research and Training (SMART) facility or Virtual Prototyping Lab which is under the flagship program of Chip to Start-up (C2S) of MeitY that facilitates to impart training in advanced design training, research, and design and development of electronics systems across the country.
The Government of Tamil Nadu in collaboration with IIT Madras and Ministry of Electronics and Information technology has planned to establish School of Semiconductor to train young talents who aspire to acquire semiconductor skills.
The training in custom designed industry ready EDA (Electronics Design Automation) tool would further enable young budding engineers to fetch job opportunities in different manufacturing industries which are exponentially growing in India through Make in India and Aatma Nirbhar program. Industry partners like Lam Research have partnered with Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru to train students with direct learning simulation tools and semiconductor fabrication.
The Centre of excellence on semiconductor technologies like Vinod Dham Centre of Excellence for Semiconductor and Microelectronics (VDSemiX) was established in Delhi Technological University, New Delhi thereby making a bold step to cater for the semiconductor industry by equipping the students with direct simulation and fabrication training and experiential learning in emerging semiconductor technologies.
India's digital decade provides hand-on practice and experiential product-based learning for students to undergo summer internships / project-based learning in the semiconductor technologies.
Semiconductor mission initiative
India has already set a semiconductor roadmap and strong base to break the barriers with bold beginning through various pioneering schemes like like Design Linked Initiative (DLI), Production Linked Initiative (PLI), National Manufacturing Mission have boosted the semiconductor industries like Sahasra Semiconductor, Noida, RRP Electronics, Mumbai to develop cutting-edge semiconductor products which are boon to different domains like space satellites, healthcare imaging and diagnosis, smart farming, defense systems. The mission will play a vital role in increasing the roles and responsibilities of Indian MSMEs as well to enter the domain through semiconductor industrial clusters. The primary focus of the semiconductor industries is to bridge the gap between innovation and incubation of ideas, thereby leading to custom design product development and protecting the intellectual property rights (IPR).
India is poised to reach greater heights to market the vocal for local chips through the MSMEs pioneering digital platform like Government e Market Place (GeM) and Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) as well.
UP: A Semiconductor Hub
The state university of Uttar Pradesh, Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow has introduced a course curriculum for the students to convert major projects in their undergraduate program to startup that could be recognised under DPIIT registration. The recently launched Chips to Startup (C2S), MeitY and Swavalambini acts as catalyst for the female students to start their own ventures through women entrepreneurship development supported by Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Government of India.
The students can interact with startup founders, scientists, and industry experts as well This will further boost the Uttar Pradesh IT Startup Policy and startup ecosystem of the state. The state of Uttar Pradesh is marching towards Semiconductor Viksit Bharat@2047 through several initiatives like establishing India's first semiconductor park in Noida which would escalate the state of Uttar Pradesh to achieve one-trillion-dollar economy by 2030.
The writer is the Head of the Institute Industry Interface Program and Assistant Professor in Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering Department