Massive growth in electronics production is fuelling semiconductor demand: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Bangalore: Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajiv Chandrasekhar said the massive growth in electronics production in India – both for domestic consumption and exports – is fueling “underlying semiconductor demand”, prompting India to start manufacturing its own chips. A solid case has been made.

Apple’s contract makers expect to manufacture iPhones worth Rs 47,000 crore in India this fiscal, in the second year of the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme that began in April, ET reported on Thursday. This will be almost five times the Rs 10,000 crore iPhones made in the country by Foxconn and Wistron in FY22.

Chandrasekhar said that there are other reasons why India should get into semiconductor manufacturing, as India has a strong design and innovation ecosystem, and the country is a leader in the three main drivers for semiconductors – automotive, compute and mobile devices and new generation processors that are data driven. , are artificial intelligence.

Chandrashekhar was speaking in Bengaluru ahead of the three-day SemiconIndia conference 2022. The conference, to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, is seen as a “launch pad to kickstart India’s ambition in becoming a global semiconductor hub and nurturing the chip design and manufacturing ecosystem”.

Earlier this week, Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnav had said that “

“India is completely fine with its global plans be it Intel, Global Foundries” and India is in talks with some bigwigs to attract them to the country.

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The conference will see participation from global experts from industry, academia and research institutions, including Vinod Dham, founder of Indo-US Venture Partners; Sanjay Mehrotra, President and CEO, Micron Technology; Randhir Thakur, President, Intel Foundry Services, Intel etc.

“The reason India is not getting into semiconductors is because the rest of the world is doing it. For us this is a very logical expansion of the opportunities of the digital economy to include semiconductors,” Chandrashekhar said.

He also said that the head of the India Semiconductor Mission will be announced soon, who will be responsible for evaluating the applications the government has received so far.

“Technical services have driven the digital economy for the last 22 years. Now think about the next 25 years. And the next 25 years are going to be AI, data, internet, electronics and semiconductors. So in a sense, we are just investing in what the future is going to be,” Chandrashekhar said.

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Originally published at Pen 18