MoS IT to empower semiconductor startups, next-gen chip designers

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IANS | 09 May, 2023
India's semiconductor market is projected to reach $64 billion by 2026 and Minister of State for Electronics & IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar will meet and encourage startups, next-generation innovators, chip designers and business leaders to invest in the semiconductor sector at an event as part of a series at IIT Delhi on May 12.

The minister in February inaugurated the 2nd 'Semicon India FutureDESIGN Roadshow' at IISc in Bengaluru, saying that the country is growing rapidly in global electronics value chains and rapid growth of digitalisation, along with the country's high-growth digital and innovation economy, has created opportunities in the 'New World Order of Semiconductor and Electronics'.

The first event of this series was held at Karnavati University, Gujarat last year.

At the Bengaluru event, Chandrasekhar announced the first set of startups selected under the 'Semicon India Future Design DLI' scheme.

The scheme aims to offer financial incentives as well as design infrastructure support across various stages of development and deployment of semiconductor design(s) for Integrated Circuits (ICs), Chipsets, System on Chips (SoCs), Systems & IP Cores and semiconductor linked design(s) over a period of five years.

According to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, "we have an exceptional semiconductor design talent pool which makes up to 20 per cent of semiconductor design engineers".

The IIT Delhi event will focus on innovative semiconductor designs for automobility, mobility and compute, stimulate the next generation semiconductor design start-ups, catalyse development of Indian IP cores in Semiconductors, catalyse co-development and joint ownership of IPs with active Industry participation and availability of Incentives for the next wave of design startups.

The Semicon India Programme, which has an outlay of about $10 billion, funds 50 per cent of the semiconductor manufacturing project costs with 2.5 per cent of the budget earmarked for R&D, skill development and training, according to a report by Invest India, the National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency, India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) and Counterpoint Research that came out on Tuesday.

The scheme aims to offer financial incentives as well as design infrastructure support across various stages of development and deployment of semiconductor design(s) for Integrated Circuits (ICs), Chipsets, System on Chips (SoCs), Systems & IP Cores and semiconductor linked design(s) over a period of five years.

India's semiconductor market was valued at $22.7 billion in 2019, according to an earlier joint report by Counterpoint Research and the India Electronics & Semiconductor Association (IESA).

The 2026 forecast of $64 billion is set to be driven by both domestic and export markets with significant demand from the consumer electronics, telecom, IT hardware and industrial sectors.

India's 'telecom stack' and industrial applications are expected to account for two-thirds of the total.

"In the short term, there is a huge opportunity being driven by domestic demand across applications like sensors, logic chips and analog devices," said Tarun Pathak, Research Director at Counterpoint.

"Local sourcing is already happening in a significant way. It accounted for around 10 per cent of the overall market in 2022," he added.

According to Amitesh Kumar Sinha, CEO of ISM and Joint Secretary, MeitY, "India is committed to becoming a reliable partner in global supply chains and we are working towards that by framing long-term policies, keeping the next 25 years in mind."

"More than 70 per cent of the project costs for semiconductor manufacturing are incentivised by the central and state governments, of which 50 per cent is funded by the central government on an upfront basis while the rest is covered by the state governments," Sinha said.