India: Becoming a World Leader in Chip Design
Nearly 20% of the world’s engineers working in the semiconductor design industry are headquartered in India, making it a significant hub in this field. International tech behemoths have established R&D facilities all around the nation, where staff concentrate on vital tasks like performance optimisation and logic translation. Government incentives and the anticipated increase in semiconductor usage are driving India’s current aspirations to become a major global chip maker.
Believe it or not, about 20% of all chip design engineers across the globe are working from India. As ANI highlighted, this makes India a key player in the global semiconductor design scene.
Large R&D and design facilities have been set up in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Noida by well-known tech firms including Qualcomm, Intel, Nvidia, Broadcom, and MediaTek. India is become one of the world’s top hubs for chip creation because to its significant presence.
According to the paper, which explains the global division of labour, American engineers choose high-level chip architecture, which includes choosing the chip’s kind, end use, features, and launch plan. Indian engineering teams, on the other hand, handle crucial execution activities including translating architecture into logic, testing and modelling chips, improving electronic design automation (EDA) tools, optimising performance, and building drivers and firmware.
The paper emphasises that there is a series of complementary responsibilities between Indian and U.S. teams rather than a “ma
ster-servant” model.
India’s legislative initiatives to fortify its semiconductor industry were also noted by Bastion Research. The Semiconductor India Program was introduced by the government in 2021 with incentives totalling about ₹76,000 crore in an effort to draw in foreign manufacturers.
India’s demand for semiconductors is expected to surge in the coming years. “At present, we use semiconductors worth around $24 billion, and by 2030 this figure could climb to between $100 and $120 billion,” explained Sandeep Kumar, CEO of L&T Semiconductor Technologies and Chairman of the Semiconductor Product Leadership Forum. He added that once India begins manufacturing these chips locally, the country’s share in the global market is bound to grow.
The India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) launched the Semiconductor Product Leadership Forum with the goal of establishing an environment that fosters high-value innovation, IP development, and product design. By 2035, it aims to establish over 100 new businesses, creating jobs for almost 500,000 workers, many of whom will be engineers.
The first domestically made chip was recently launched at the CG Semi Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) plant in Sanand, Gujarat, marking a historic milestone for India. During the facility’s opening last week, Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw declared that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would shortly dedicate the nation’s first made-in-India chip.
Ten chip manufacturing projects totalling more than ₹1.6 lakh crore have been sanctioned by the government so far in six states. Additionally, work is being done on Semicon 2.0, the next stage of India’s semiconductor mission.