India's Technology Development Trends

 Does India need R&D and manufacturing of Semiconductors and Packaging? The Indian Hi-Tech community seems to think there are only two parts to making electronic products- Design and Manufacturing. This is what some fabless companies think as well.  This is incorrect. There are four parts to making any new electronic product.: 1. System Design and Architecture for the next gen product 2. Technology demonstration of each system technology. This is research, R in R&D IBM used to call this step as T-0. Intel calls it path finding. 3. Technology Development of demonstrated technologies  in step 2. 4.Manufacture of developed- technologies. The total cycle time for these four can be 10 years for new products with new technologies.This is a long and expensive process.  System design is designing the next product to meet its market needs. This design for most people is electrical design for electrical performance at system level. But this is not enough. Most electrical engineers design for ideal performance. And most of these designs are not manufacturable. So, the design ends up being modified for manufacturability. But then some of the designs don't produce reliable products. So the designs need to be further modified for mechanical reliability.  System technologies are new technologies that corporations develop in research mode. This is R in R&D.  Technology development( This is D) is a time-consuming process. The technologies developed in research mode need to be further developed so they are manufacturable, cost-effective and meet all the requirements for the planned product. Not all technologies developed in research mode do that. This is one reason that most technologies developed at universities don't end up in  products.  Rule of thumb: If it takes one person to do research, it takes 10 to develop the technology and 100 to manufacture. Design can be part of research or separate, same magnitude..  The implications of this are huge for India. India can't make products without manufacturing.And India can't manufacture without doing R&D. India doesn't do much of either, today.  So, India needs to do both. Attracting manufacturing companies with incentives is a great start. But where do the next gen manufacturing technologies come from? They can only come from R&D, either from within India or outside. Depending on someone else to do R&D or manufacture is risky.  The second implication is about the number of people involved in R&D Vs. manufacturing. Manufacturing employs 100X more people than in design . This is the reason why China and Taiwan became such super powers. If design employs 25,000 people, India has an opportunity to add 100X more. That means 2.5M people for one sector. One can see how India can be a developed- country focusing on R&D and manufacturing.  Looks like the Hon. PM Modi, and Hon Ministers Chandrasekhar and Vaishnav understood the value of manufacturing and R&D for India in creating the ISM initiative that they created.

India's quantum revolution is gaining serious momentum lately. Just in the past few months, two major breakthroughs show India is competing at the global cutting edge. Researchers at IISc Bangalore (rated one of the world’s top research universities and beautiful campus pictured here) have created a way to control light at incredibly tiny scales that could transform quantum communication. The breakthrough appears to be particularly valuable for quantum technologies because achieving high-purity, efficient single-photon sources is one of the major challenges in developing practical quantum communication systems. Meanwhile in a new announcement last week, C-DOT and Sterlite just demonstrated India's first quantum-secured data transmission over a multi-core fiber, solving a key cost challenge for implementing quantum networks at scale. We continue to study this space and those building real-world applications that will change how individuals and businesses operate. Quantum isn't just about theoretical physics anymore - it's about building real-world systems that will transform every industry from fintech to healthcare in the decade ahead. This isn't just academic achievement, it's about India's competitive advantage in the technologies that will define global leadership tomorrow. ✨🚀

India made history with the launch of its first commercial Semiconductor fabrication facility! India’s tryst with the semiconductor industry is a tale of ambition, setbacks, and tenacity. India’s prime minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated the three semiconductor facilities on March 13th, 2024. The plants are collectively worth $15 billion. India’s aspirations to build an indigenous semiconductor fabrication capability are not new. The country embarked on that promise in 1984 by establishing Semiconductor Complex Limited (SCL) with government support. SCL obtained a license from American Microsystems (AMI) for a 5-micron process node. SCL forged several crucial partnerships with companies like Rockwell, Hitachi, Acorn BBC to manufacture microprocessor and DRAM chips. SCL stood on the precipice of technological excellence, just steps away from achieving the leading-edge technology node that giants like Intel and Toshiba had attained by 1987. It was one of the few fabs in the world that could produce 64K DRAM chips. SCL had a team of talented engineers and scientists who had received training from some of the best universities in the world eager to make contributions to India’s semiconductor industry. However, fate dealt a harsh blow. A massive fire in 1989 engulfed SCL’s fab facility, destroying it completely and setting back the company's progress by several years. The origins of the fire, till date remain shrouded in mystery, sparking suspicions of arson. It’s possible that SCL today could have become the TSMC of India if there hadn't been a fire. The fire set back India’s semiconductor ambitions several decades to this date. That dream was fulfilled on this historic day of March 13th, 2024 with the inauguration of 3 plants. The most high-profile project is the Dholera, Gujrat fab facility worth $11 billion where Tata Electronics in partnership with Taiwan’s PowerChip Semiconductor (PSMC) will produce 28nm chips. The 300mm fab has capacity to produce 50,000 wafers/month by the end of 2026. The fab can eventually make 22nm chips. It will manufacture chips for power management, display drivers, microcontrollers & CMOS logic chips.   The other two plants are a $3.25 billion packaging plant by Tata Electronics & a $900 million packaging plant by CG Power/Renesas offering wire bond, flip chip, & SiP packaging options. There is already a chip packaging plant in the works by Micron in Gujrat with its own investment of $800 million & an additional $1.92 billion investment from the Indian government. These projects kick-start India’s Semiconductor Vision to be fully self-reliant with the Make-in-India capability and supporting the massive growth expected in WW semiconductor revenues. India’s domestic semiconductor market itself is expected to grow 5-fold in revenues from today’s ~$22 billion to ~110 billion by 2030. This is just the beginning of the journey towards semiconductor manufacturing & many more fabs will hopefully come up in the near future!