Our semicon report card

July 29, 2023
Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
Category: DPN Topics

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Our semicon report card

Subject : Schemes

Context:

In the 1960s, India ignored a proposal from Fairchild Semiconductors (whose founders went on to create Intel) to set up a semiconductor packaging unit, which later moved to Malaysia.

Recent Developments:

U.S. chipmaker AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) to invest $400 mn in India.
- AMD will build its largest design centre in Bengaluru.
Hon Hai Technology Group, also known as Foxconn, earlier this month pulled out of the chipmaking joint venture with Vedanta.
- Vedanta to start chip making in 2.5 yrs.
Micron, a world major in the semiconductor memory space, has announced its first-ever investment in Gujarat.
- This $2.75 billion investment will help develop supply chains and Fabs.

Initiatives to make India a semiconductor hub:

Now India has set a goal of a $1 trillion digital economy, aiming for it to contribute 20 per cent to GDP.
India’s chip market is set to reach about $64 billion in 2026, triple what it was in 2019.

Initiatives	Description
Semicon India	Semicon India 2023 being held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat from July 28-30 Its first edition was held in Bengaluru. Semicon India’s futureSKILL has developed a comprehensive VLSI curriculum for 85,000 engineers with industry and government partnership and is being implemented this academic year across 300 institutes. Under Semicon India futureDESIGN, over 30 semiconductor design startups have been set up in India. With financial support already granted to five startups and 25 more being evaluated, the goal is to increase the number of supported startups to 200.
Digital India RISC-V (DIR-V) Programme	Launched in: April 2022 by MeitY. Digital India RISC-V (DIR-V) programme, aims to enable creation of Microprocessors for the future in India, for the world and achieve industry-grade silicon & Design wins by December 2023. Indian startups and enterprises will not only become a talent hub for RISC-V technology, but also be global suppliers of RISC-V SoCs for diverse applications.
Establishment of a semiconductor research facility	Semiconductor research is a priority and the existing Fab at SCL Mohali will be modernised with the help of global majors. We have earmarked over Rs 10,000 crore for its modernisation and for setting up a global India Semiconductor Research Center (ISRC).
India’s first indigenously developed microprocessor	SHAKTI (32-bit) & VEGA (64 bit) is an open-source initiative by the Reconfigurable Intelligent Systems Engineering (RISE) group at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and Centre for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC), India to develop the first indigenous Indian industrial-grade processor. The aim of SHAKTI initiative includes building an open source production-grade processor, complete system on chips (SoCs), development boards and SHAKTI based software platform. The primary focus of the team is architecture research to develop SoCs, which is competitive with commercial offerings in the market concerning area, power and performance. All the source codes for SHAKTI are open-sourced under the Modified BSD License. The project was funded by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY), Government of India.
India Semiconductor Mission (ISM)	India Semiconductor Mission(ISM): The ISM was launched in 2021 with a total financial outlay of Rs76,000 crore under the aegis of the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY). Part of the comprehensive program for the development of sustainable semiconductor and display ecosystems in the country. Aim: To provide financial support to companies investing in semiconductors, display manufacturing and design ecosystem. ISM will serve as the nodal agency for efficient, coherent and smooth implementation of the schemes. Components: Scheme for setting up of Semiconductor Fabs in India: aimed at attracting large investments for setting up semiconductor wafer fabrication facilities in the country. Scheme for setting up of Display Fabs in India: aimed at attracting large investments for setting up TFT LCD / AMOLED based display fabrication facilities in the country. Scheme for setting up of Compound Semiconductors / Silicon Photonics / Sensors Fab and Semiconductor Assembly, Testing, Marking and Packaging (ATMP) / OSAT facilities in India Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme.