Electronics and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Friday that he is waiting for the first wafer to come out of India’s first semiconductor fabrication plant in Dholera in 2028, as he said the country’s semiconductor industry had moved from establishing capacity to scaling up production.
Semicon 2.0, the second phase of the government’s semiconductor programme, is built around six pillars – chip design, materials and machines, more fabs, more ATMP units, research and development, and talent. Vaishnaw said the government expects at least 200 chip-design companies to develop in India through Semicon 2.0. Under the first phase, more than 105 chip-design startups emerged and 20 received venture capital funding, he said.
The minister said the government’s semiconductor programme had been designed around a 20-year roadmap due to the complexity of the industry and the time required to build an ecosystem around fabs.
