India is yet to get Chip Manufacturing Companies

[52051]

The only chip company India get is fish&chips company

 

[Figaro]

if you visit youtube for finding tutorials regarding programming and coding,after u.s and western people you will find indians with most videos regarding such tutorials

Actually, from what I've heard the Indian programming tutorials are usually substantially worse than those of others. Quantity trumps quality here ...

It's not even really successful in software. Its position is worse now than back in 2005.

The fact that India hasn't been able to extend their position in software beyond a couple IT firms (e.g. Infosys) really shows you the state of technology there. If they've barely made any progress in software development, would you think they could make inroads into hardware, a field that is substantially more talent and capital intensive? With regards to the gap between India and China in terms of technology, the one that exists in 2020 is substantially larger than the one which existed 20 or even 10 years ago.

 

[Yaseen1]

u.s and Europeans are leading in programming and software these days and much ahead of india ,indian tutorials are useful for those students who are at basic level and are less helpful for advanced and more complex programming

Actually, from what I've heard the Indian programming tutorials are usually substantially worse than those of others. Quantity trumps quality here ...


The fact that India hasn't been able to extend their position in software beyond a couple IT firms (e.g. Infosys) really shows you the state of technology there. If they've barely made any progress in software development, would you think they could make inroads into hardware, a field that is substantially more talent and capital intensive? With regards to the gap between India and China in terms of technology, the one that exists in 2020 is substantially larger than the one which existed 20 or even 10 years ago.

 

[kris]

Semiconductor manufacturing is a bad choice for India - too much capital (all the risk associated with capital), too much resources (water, energy) and too little profit. It is easier to make money off software

Not sure about what you said but there is a loss of significant revenue to outside states because of this...
We can't bear it for long time

 

[nahtanbob]

Not sure about what you said but there is a loss of significant revenue to outside states because of this...
We can't bear it for long time

Capital is scarce in India. you need to decide where the best return on capital is. Do I spend $3 billion on semiconductor plant ? Or do I educate 20,000-30,000 engineers with the same money.

semiconductor fabs are capital intensive. you have to raise a lot of capital in dollars. you need to purchase hundreds of millions in semiconductor equipment. you are incurring foreign debt. You have to pay off the debt and then make profit in limited amount of time

in the long run India is such a large market that it makes sense to have some semiconductor fabrication. right now the best bet is to give incentives to foreign makers to setup shop

 

[jamahir]

While India has done well in terms of chip design

I must ask the author how ? Is there even an Indian fabless microprocessor design company like ARM ?

Clearly, there is no dearth of talent when it comes to India becoming a dominant player in semiconductor chip manufacturing.

Again, the author is saying an untruth. Some years ago, the Intel-Bangalore ( India ) office had an Indian team developing a six-core processor out of an existing four-core processor. This team then were celebrated within India as if they had actually designed a new processor and were even given an award by the central government.

Why hasn't this team since then designed a processor for the Indian government's 'India Microprocessor Program' which has existed for several years now.

Any Indian brand or top app?

india has focused on software industry and not made much progress in hardware

It's not even really successful in software. Its position is worse now than back in 2005.

Yes, there is not even a single Indian operating system despite the 200,000+ computer science graduates flooding out of Indian engineering colleges every year.

I work in a company which is the pioneer chip design company in India. We in fact have the world's first in production Software Defined Radio (SDR) chipset which can be used in communication devices working in variety of waveforms and frequencies. We are also the Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) technology partner of ISRO

We have developed various products including Tactical Radios for military, a sat sleeve which can convert any Android phone to a satphone, locomotive tracking system for Indian Railways, 2-way communication and tracking system for fishermen, UHF based non line of sight radios with range up to 20 KM. We are also making 5G radios for US operators.

All these products and solutions are based on our chipset

Hi, your company has found a niche area and good for them, but ask your engineers if they don't at all use general purpose microprocessors in your devices.

It is one thing developing SDRs but entirely another thing designing a general purpose microprocessor like an Intel Core i7 or some ARM variant or the Sun SPARC.

Semiconductor manufacturing is a bad choice for India - too much capital (all the risk associated with capital), too much resources (water, energy) and too little profit. It is easier to make money off software

Why weren't all these many Indian computer-based companies able to even have a fabless microprocessor design model like ARM ?

ARM is a profitable company without having a multi-billion dollar chip manufacturing plant.

 

[Han Patriot]

india has focused on software industry and not made much progress in hardware

Outsourcing to be precise, they don't own any software brands mkr the IP.

 

[nahtanbob]

I must ask the author how ? Is there even an Indian fabless microprocessor design company like ARM ?



Again, the author is saying an untruth. Some years ago, the Intel-Bangalore ( India ) office had an Indian team developing a six-core processor out of an existing four-core processor. This team then were celebrated within India as if they had actually designed a new processor and were even given an award by the central government.

Why hasn't this team since then designed a processor for the Indian government's 'India Microprocessor Program' which has existed for several years now.







Yes, there is not even a single Indian operating system despite the 200,000+ computer science graduates flooding out of Indian engineering colleges every year.



Hi, your company has found a niche area and good for them, but ask your engineers if they don't at all use general purpose microprocessors in your devices.

It is one thing developing SDRs but entirely another thing designing a general purpose microprocessor like an Intel Core i7 or some ARM variant or the Sun SPARC.



Why weren't all these many Indian computer-based companies able to even have a fabless microprocessor design model like ARM ?

ARM is a profitable company without having a multi-billion dollar chip manufacturing plant.

I am sure there are American fabless semiconductor companies with backoffices in India

As far as operating systems there is Linux and Android. Why would you want to reinvent the wheel ?

Ditto with processors - most of the servers run on x86. It does not make sense for anyone to reinvent the wheel

you do not compete against Intels and ARMs of the world

as an example you try to build a great AI or Machine learning or Computer Vision chip based on Intel or ARM core. you do not face existing entrenched competition. Nvidia might be a rival. But their chipsets are not as common as Intel chipset

 

[Soumitra]

Hi, your company has found a niche area and good for them, but ask your engineers if they don't at all use general purpose microprocessors in your devices.

It is one thing developing SDRs but entirely another thing designing a general purpose microprocessor like an Intel Core i7 or some ARM variant or the Sun SPARC.

Communication is not exactly a niche segment. Sure it is B2B not B2C but the market is worth billions of dollars. Even in time of covid we are getting orders left right and center. While others are laying off workforce we are adding people. Just this week we hired one person to handle European sales

semiconductor fabs are capital intensive. you have to raise a lot of capital in dollars. you need to purchase hundreds of millions in semiconductor equipment. you are incurring foreign debt. You have to pay off the debt and then make profit in limited amount of time

There is one government fab facility, I think in Chandigarh. They make 64nm chips, however our design is 32 nm. So we went to Samsung in Korea.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Oh please, let me give you my take. India is these global companies, most MNC's employ Indians at all levels in their management. And I for one am happy with that. Don't go by the pseudo nationalism that exist in Chinese society and else where.

And two, Indian economy is just about reaching an inflection point, where it can produce companies that can compete globally both financially and technologically. As one needs deep pockets or restrictive domestic policy to be able to compete with the American MNC's.

Even with China, you only hear about these amazing technology companies coming out of China after they reached $10 trillion GDP. Most importantly their per capita income today can support many technological products. That creates a market. With China, it is huge. So they today have a market for their companies to have a foundation and expand to other markets. This is basic gist of evolution of MNC's. So mark my words, India's time will come. One just has to be patient.

this is incorrect. Where did $14T come from? it came from the basics. Remember that Huawei was founded as a worker's cooperative in the 1980's. SMIC started in 2000 when Chinese GDP was $1T. Intel and Samsung invested in China in the mid 2000's with Samsung Xi'an fab starting construction in 2007 when Chinese GDP per capita was $4k-5k. How China did it was 1. early investment, 2. high demand from electronics assembly, PCB, etc. industries, 3. support from state R&D in materials science, chemistry, physics, etc.

Note that SMIC started first in 2000 and Japanese companies like NEC had been cooperating with China in semiconductors since 1972(!) and invested in a Chinese commercial fab as early as 1998 which later became Huahong NEC.

However, India needs a semiconductor industry. 1 billion people cannot be allowed to be cut off from modern technology at the whim of others. This is speaking as a human being. Semiconductors are not as important as food and water, but it's not that far behind. To get this, India needs to start successfully courting FDI in this area immediately.

Having a strong fabless sector is not enough. Huawei is a tier 1 fabless designer with offerings in modem, processor and AI chips with 32 nm to 5 nm processes. But without TSMC their most advanced designs are just on paper.

Capital is scarce in India. you need to decide where the best return on capital is. Do I spend $3 billion on semiconductor plant ? Or do I educate 20,000-30,000 engineers with the same money.

semiconductor fabs are capital intensive. you have to raise a lot of capital in dollars. you need to purchase hundreds of millions in semiconductor equipment. you are incurring foreign debt. You have to pay off the debt and then make profit in limited amount of time

in the long run India is such a large market that it makes sense to have some semiconductor fabrication. right now the best bet is to give incentives to foreign makers to setup shop

Without a semiconductor plant, you can educate a million engineers, they won't have enough opportunities and will just waste their skills. Why bother at that point?

 

[nahtanbob]

However, India needs a semiconductor industry. 1 billion people cannot be allowed to be cut off from modern technology at the whim of others. This is speaking as a human being. Semiconductors are not as important as food and water, but it's not that far behind. To get this, India needs to start successfully courting FDI in this area immediately.

Without a semiconductor plant, you can educate a million engineers, they won't have enough opportunities and will just waste their skills. Why bother at that point?

At some point a large country like India gets its semiconductor fabs.

How many people in USA are employed in semiconductor manufacturing ? It is in the tens of thousands. India cannot afford that kind of capital investment for a few thousand jobs.

Lack of Semiconductor fabs does not prevent fabless semiconductor companies. that ought to a poor country like India's focus.

You are right India will be at the whim of semiconductor suppliers. Even if you have your own fabs you will be at the whim of countries that own semiconductor equipment firms.

 

[fitpOsitive]

India's strength is in IT, not in hardware ... IT infrastructure is significantly less complicated than semiconductors and things on that line.

But Indians are developing most complicated hardware these days.
To the best of my knowledge, Indians contributed in the design of ARM, and they are contributing in making IBMs new processor, that is RISCV based.
A small country like Taiwan, is producing chips, but why India is not doing the same, I don't know.

 

[jamahir]

Ditto with processors - most of the servers run on x86. It does not make sense for anyone to reinvent the wheel

you do not compete against Intels and ARMs of the world

I will again mention the Government of India program called 'India Microprocessor Program' set up some years ago to get an Indian team to locally design a microprocessor that can be used safely in Indian military, scientific and other strategic usages.

I say "safely" because there are open and hidden backdoor methods into computers such as the Intel AMT system which allows big computer seller companies such as Dell to remotely monitor the sold computers and the AMT system does not even let the running OS and main microprocessor know that they are being monitored. The GoI fears that such backdoors can be built into microprocessors too that may be exploited by hackers or governments.

There are actually two microprocessor projects in India right now. One is called AJIT and the other Shakti but the former basically implements the American open-source SPARC architecture and the latter implements the also open-source international project RISC-V. In other words, not local. Not much intellectual work invested.

Communication is not exactly a niche segment. Sure it is B2B not B2C but the market is worth billions of dollars. Even in time of covid we are getting orders left right and center. While others are laying off workforce we are adding people. Just this week we hired one person to handle European sales

It may be worth lot of money but for me it is not intellectually stimulating enough.

There is one government fab facility, I think in Chandigarh. They make 64nm chips, however our design is 32 nm. So we went to Samsung in Korea.

SCL mainly limits itself to producing fault-tolerant chips for government departments like ISRO and for the military, as far as I know.

I don't know if they produce chips for commercial clients.

You are right India will be at the whim of semiconductor suppliers. Even if you have your own fabs you will be at the whim of countries that own semiconductor equipment firms.

Well, fab plants in Taiwan, USA, Germany etc are not exactly enemies to the current Indian political system.

 

[nahtanbob]

I will again mention the Government of India program called 'India Microprocessor Program' set up some years ago to get an Indian team to locally design a microprocessor that can be used safely in Indian military, scientific and other strategic usages.

I say "safely" because there are open and hidden backdoor methods into computers such as the Intel AMT system which allows big computer seller companies such as Dell to remotely monitor the sold computers and the AMT system does not even let the running OS and main microprocessor know that they are being monitored. The GoI fears that such backdoors can be built into microprocessors too that may be exploited by hackers or governments.

There are actually two microprocessor projects in India right now. One is called AJIT and the other Shakti but the former basically implements the American open-source SPARC architecture and the latter implements the also open-source international project RISC-V. In other words, not local. Not much intellectual work invested.

you can develop processors for reasons of national security. i am not going to argue against it. I bet the computer security in Indian government networks is so lax that a fraction of the resources spent on developing microprocessors could be devoted here

 

[jamahir]

you can develop processors for reasons of national security. i am not going to argue against it.

OK.

I bet the computer security in Indian government networks is so lax that a fraction of the resources spent on developing microprocessors could be devoted here

Well, there is certainly a long-time hacking contest between Indian and Pakistani hackers that pops up occasionally and the intent does not seem to go beyond defacing government sites and pasting "You are hacked" messages. It is not like the more serious Israel-Iran hack wars machineries get disabled or damaged.