Like-minded nations collaborate with India to make it a chip manufacturing hub: Krishnan

Due to the prevailing geopolitical situation, like-minded countries are collaborating with India to make it a major Semiconductor manufacturing On Sunday, a senior official at the Ministry of Electronics and IT said pilot facilities of US storage semiconductor maker Micron and Tata Electronics have already rolled out chips, and their main plants in Gujarat will start producing chips made in India from late 2025.

“Globally, and thanks to geopolitical circumstances, there is a growing awareness that semiconductors “They are a very important and strategic product and therefore we need substantial resilience in semiconductor production,” Krishnan said.

The importance of resilience in semiconductors was underscored during the pandemic, when many industries (including automotive, medical devices and other electronics, and consumer electronics) suffered because they did not have access to chips, leading to the belief that there should be greater diversification, especially for semiconductor sourcing, he added.

“To build this resilience, many like-minded countries are collaborating with India to make it the next major destination where semiconductor manufacturing can actually take place. This is fundamentally to build resilience in the Global semiconductor value chain“We have an agreement with the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan and now also with Singapore,” Krishnan said.

To date, the government has approved projects involving investments worth Rs 1.5 trillion. This excludes the Rs 83,000 crore investment recently announced by Adani Group-Tower Semiconductor for setting up a new chip plant in Maharashtra.

“The government has approved five projects under the India Semiconductor Mission. The construction of Micron’s flagship plant in Gujarat is at an advanced stage. They have completed their pilot facility. Similarly, Tata Electronics has also set up its pilot facility for ATMP in Karnataka. These two pilot facilities have already launched the first chips. At the flagship facilities, sometime towards the second half of 2025, we should see the launch of the first chips,” Krishnan said. He also noted that companies in the semiconductor ecosystem are showing keen interest in India, with participation at the upcoming Semicon India event quadrupling due to the potential the country holds for the semiconductor ecosystem. “Semi is a global association of all semiconductor industries. They hold these global conferences in the US, Japan, Taiwan, Kuala Lumpur and these kinds of other places.

“India joins the select group of countries that host a Semicom. I am happy to inform you that this event in India has four times more registrations and more incidents than when the first conference was held in any other country,” Krishan said.

According to Semi, there will be over 650 booths and over 250 semiconductor companies at Semicon India.

Krishnan said the idea that India has the potential to be the world’s leading semiconductor chip manufacturer and can meet global resilience needs is something that excites a large number of companies and other countries as well.

“They (companies) see the potential of India as a source of human resources, a destination for manufacturing with the right technical talent and at the same time a potentially large market where they can actually sell semiconductor products,” Krishnan said.