India is leading the technology revolution with focus on electronics. As part of the revolution, semiconductors play an indispensable role and have applications in nearly all sectors, including communication, defence, automobiles and computing devices. Strengthening the important pillar of progress of the country – ‘Electronics’ and reinforcing the vision of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’, India is poised to broaden and deepen its value chain and facilitate a world class semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem.

To showcase India as a hub for semiconductor design and manufacturing, SemiconIndia 2022 Conference was organised in Bengaluru last year. Building on its success, India Semiconductor Mission organised SemiconIndia 2023 Conference with the theme ‘Catalysing India’s Semiconductor Ecosystem’ at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. More than 8,000 persons from over 23 countries participated in the Conference. SemiconIndia 2023 witnessed participation of industry leaders from major global companies such as Micron Technology, Applied Materials, Foxconn, Cadence and AMD, and the industry association, SEMI.

The three-day SemiconIndia 2023 was inaugurated by Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi and in his special address he emphasised the role of semiconductors in day-to-day lives of the people and how India is committed to build the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem under the Semicon India Programme. Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Communications, and Railways, Government of India highlighted Hon’ble PM’s role in transforming every sector in India with a focus on electronics manufacturing, particularly semiconductors. Shri Bhupendra Patel, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Gujarat addressed the gathering and applauded the visionary guidance of Hon’ble PM around manufacturing landscape, especially electronics and semiconductors.

Various global industry leaders delivered keynote address on topic “Catalyzing India’s Semiconductor Ecosystem”. Mr. Sanjay Mehrotra, speaking on behalf of Micron, highlighted the significant opportunities for India to strengthen and expand its manufacturing ecosystem. Micron, a major player in the semiconductor industry, is proud to be a part of India’s semiconductor journey. Mr. Anirudh Devgan, President and CEO, Cadence said that India’s key strengths in the semiconductor industry include strong government support and initiatives, a pool of technology talent, the presence of multinational companies, and the ongoing Digital India transformation.

Mr. Prabu Raja, President, SPG, Applied Materials said that semiconductor industry is experiencing growth driven by factors such as Artificial Intelligence, Clean energy initiatives, and digital transformation through cloud computing, advanced data generation, and transfer systems. Mr. Siva Sivaram, President, Western Digital, a leading company in flash memory and essential storage infrastructure, was of the view that to establish a semiconductor supply chain in India, intellectual property creation is essential.

Mr. Mark Papermaster, CTO, AMD spoke about the AI inflection point and its tremendous potential for India. AMD is actively driving innovation in this domain, investing US$ 400 million in India over the next 5 years to establish India as the world’s largest design center for AMD. Mr. S.Y. Chiang, Chief Strategy Officer, Foxconn presented the challenges and opportunities in the post Moore’s Law Era. He pointed at emerging requirements in semiconductor industry in the areas of system design and partition, packaging and PCB technology and in meeting requirements of applications like IoT.

Additionally, panel discussions were organised to deliberate on various pertinent themes encompassing the semiconductor and display ecosystem. Dr. Manish Hooda, SCL; Mr. Vivek Sharma, STMicroelectronics; Dr. Yee Shyi Chang, Technology Ambassador, ICEA; Mr. Rohit Girdhar, Infineon Technologies; Mr. Sriram Ramakrishnan, Business Head, Reliance Industries Ltd.; Mr. Darshan Hiranandani, Hiranandani Group discussed about the advantages of manufacturing compound semiconductors in India. The speakers suggested prioritising Silicon Carbide for EVs and focusing on system design and Gallium Nitride research.

In the panel discussion on dynamics of display manufacturing involving industry experts, Dr. G. Rajeswaran, Grantwood Technologies; Mr. Suraj Rengarajan, Applied Materials; Dr. Y.J. Chen, CEO, Vedanta Displays Ltd.; Mr. Achintya Bhowmick, President, SID; Mr. Ajit Aras, EVP, Sharp, emphasised the need to understand the growth trajectory of the display sector, economies of scale in manufacturing, and the building blocks of LCD and OLED assembly.

Ms. Nivruti Rai, MD and CEO, Invest India talked about the sustainable semiconductor manufacturing, investment opportunities in India and how India can turn sustainability goals into a competitive advantage. During the panel discussion on “ISM: Attracting Semiconductor Investments to India”, the experts, Mr. Ajit Manocha, SEMI; Mr. Cyril Patrick Fernandez, CTO & MD, AFT; Mr. Ajay Sawhney, Former Secretary, MeitY; Mr. Neelkanth Mishra, Chief Economist, Axis Bank; Mr. Suneet Shukla, IFCI and K. Mukundan, NIIF discussed about Government of India’s approach to emphasize the techno-financial expectations from the proposals. They highlighted that the viability of business plan and execution plan will serve as the guiding principles for evaluation of future proposals by the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM).

India has a big role to play in the growth of global semiconductor sector and SemiconIndia 2023 offered a platform to the participants to deliberate on various aspects shaping the semiconductor ecosystem in India.

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