Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw launches 2 nm semiconductor chip in Qualcomm in Bengaluru

Minister of Railways, Information & Broadcasting and Electronics & Information Technology,  Ashwini Vaishnaw launched Qualcomm 2 nm semiconductor chip, marking a significant moment in advanced semiconductor design and India’s Key Role in Global Engineering Operations today. The minister delivered a keynote address and said – “I am very happy to see this progress. The entire world is looking at us with hope because of the huge talent we have in our country. The next level of achievement will come from India”.

Ashwini Vaishnaw said “We can make a big difference in the entire global community. We are a country which believes in co-creating and co-developing. The decisive leadership of our Hon’ble Prime Minister has given us this whole new chapter of semiconductor mission in our country”. The story started way back in 1960s when Intel’s origin, the Fairchild group wanted to set up a semiconductor unit in India. But the government of that period never really understood the importance of semiconductor chips.

Our Hon’ble Prime Minister understood the importance and started the first semiconductor machine. We took a measured program of getting first few units up and running and have at least one semiconductor fab. We started with 28 nanometre as it would cover about 75% of the needs, ranging from automotive, telecom, power management and strategic requirements.

The minister added that we have made a good progress – 10 units are under construction. 4 of them started pilot production recently. They are getting their products qualified, validated with the customers and soon we will have the first unit with commercial production.

In a short time frame from 2022 till now, we have 315 universities where all the important Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools from Synopsis, Cadence or Siemens are being used by the students to design chips. Students from remote universities and colleges are designing chips, getting them taped out, validated to actual functioning process. A huge talent pipeline is getting created that will give us significant strength and advantage that our country has been known for.

Going forward, we will be starting India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) 2.0 with a different outlook. In ISM 1.0, the focus was on getting first few semiconductor Assembly, Testing, Marking, and Packaging (ATMP) facilities and getting the ecosystem in place and talent pipeline started. In India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) 2.0, first focus will be design companies and startups who can design a product and take it to the market. Second focus will be on getting the entire ecosystem from equipment manufacturers, chemical and gas manufacturers, validation and testing in India. The third focus will be to deepen the talent base. With talent pipeline being wide now, our focus is to partner with universities to develop solution in different sectors.

The minister noted “As  5th Industrial Revolution unfolds, it is important that government, industry and academia join hands and create that environment where deep tech innovation comes from India. We should be able to provide much more value to the entire world. Then our strength, which has been there for so many years, will continue to remain a huge strength”.

For this, we should make sure that students and employees get the right skills that are needed for providing solutions to the world. Industry-Academia should come up with relevant course curriculum and employees should be upskilled and reskilled. This will bring new opportunities for our country.