In a big boost to India’s dream of becoming a semiconductor nation, now the US is eying India as a true partner for making the semiconductor supply chain more resilient and diversified. US Secretary of Commerce Gina M Raimondo, who is on a four-day visit to India, said an MoU would be signed on semiconductors during her current trip. While the details of the MoU are still awaited but given US is the hub for leading fabs and fabless companies, in long run, it may allow some companies to share production-grade technology with India.
Meanwhile, the US and India are enhancing bilateral collaboration for the development of a semiconductor design, manufacturing, and fabrication ecosystem in India. A task force is being formed between the US Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and IESA with participation from the Government of India to assess near-term industry opportunities and facilitate the longer-term strategic development of complementary semiconductor ecosystems.
This task force will recommend to the Department of Commerce and the ISM opportunities and challenges to overcome to strengthen further India’s role within the global semiconductor value chain and provide inputs to the US-India Commercial Dialogue.
This collaboration along with the MoU (to be signed) could be a win-win for two reasons. India can be a talent pool for a domain already struggling to find employees globally, especially for the fabs that companies like TSMC or Samsung may be opening in the US.
“When India runs training programmes for fab engineers, we have to keep in mind that many of them may go abroad, but [we should] use that as an opportunity rather than a challenge,” says Mampazhy. In return, the US government could signal to companies like Intel that it supports them doing mature node technology transfers (licensing) to India. This will solve many of India’s starting troubles.
Over the past decade, China has been scaling up its semiconductor industry. To clamp China’s growth, the Joe Biden-led administration has imposed restrictions on selling chips and manufacturing equipment to the country. While the idea is to impair Beijing’s military and technological capabilities, some hope the ban could benefit India.
“The US is trying various ways to prevent or delay China’s advanced node progress, but in mature nodes, China is already quite ahead, and India could be a counterbalance. The US and EU incentive programmes are mostly focussed on advanced nodes; even Japan is focussing on 28 nm and below. India’s is the only policy which offers almost 75 per cent incentive (if you include state incentives) for nodes like 45 nm, 65 nm and even above, and US companies can make use of that opportunity,” explains independent semiconductor analyst Arun Mampazhy.
