India’s Semiconductor Ambitions Face Challenges And Obstacles

NEW DELHI: Work on India’s first semiconductor chip manufacturing plant is expected to get underway early in the new year, in Mysuru, Karnataka. Media reports quoted Ashwath Narayan, state IT minister, to that effect, also indicating that the company is the International Semiconductor Consortium (ISC) comprising the UAE based investment firm Next Orbit Ventures and Israel-based Tower Semiconductor (to be acquired by Intel). This is a $3 billion project to make 35 nanometre to 65 nanometre analog chips for aerospace and defence and if all goes according to plan, the ISC could be the first to take off, ahead of Foxconn and Vedanta’s plan for a Gujarat plant, and a semiconductor park proposed by Singapore’s IGSS Ventures. The ISC project could take as long as five years to become operational but India has an advantage in that it has considerable human talent when it comes to chip design....Read More