Union Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Rajeev Chandrasekhar visited the Gallium Nitride Ecosystem Enabling Centre and Incubator ( GEECI ) facility at the prestigious Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc), Bengaluru. The facility has been jointly set up by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and IISc Bengaluru aimed at establishing GaN based Development Line Foundry facility, especially for RF and power applications, including strategic applications.

The Minister after reviewing the progress of the Project and after inspecting the facility, highlighted its importance by stating that “The next 2 to 3 years offers a window of opportunity for Gallium Nitride (GaN) to play a key role in enabling e-vehicles and wireless communication”. Minister also saw the GaN transistors fabricated in the IISc CeNSE fab.

Creating strategic capabilities in emerging technologies is one of the core objectives of the Digital India Programme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the year 2015. To achieve these objectives, the Ministry of Electronics and IT has drawn MeiTY vision 1000 days which includes HiTech/Strategic Tech as an important component.  Gallium Nitride Technology is of strategic importance with its application to 5G, space and defense application.

The Minister spoke about the recently experienced Covid induced disruptions in the Global Supply Chains and how the Government, led by PM Narendra Modi, is committed to capitalise on this narrow window of opportunity that is presented to India - as the world is looking for a new and trusted supply chain partner.

“There is tremendous opportunity in the electronics manufacturing & in the field of electronics and semiconductor design”, said Mr Rajeev Chandrasekhar as he mentioned about the recently announced $10 billion  incentive package for setting up Semi Conductor fab units in India and to make india a global hub for Electronics systems design and manufacturing (ESDM).

“Research, technology development, education and training in our institutes like IISc and IITs in the area of semiconductor manufacturing is essential to realise the dream of Digital India and fabs in the nation” added Mr Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

The fab model in IISc will be a state of the art incubation to promote indigenous development of technology, and thereby encourage final deployment into cellular infrastructure, and strategic technologies.

Along with PLI and DLI schemes, GaN ecosystem will drive the innovation and encourage startups and entrepreneurs to look into business and technology seriously in next two years. AGNIT Semiconductors Pvt. Ltd. the first startup has already been incubated in TBI-InCeNSE an incubator of SID, IISc. It has raised its first round of angel funding. This will be the first startup to leverage the infrastructure created by GEECI.

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RKJ/M