Indian Electronics and Semiconductor manufacturing industry

SKC

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in my own personal experience for 15 years I have been observing that almost all PC & Laptop govt contracts go to HCL, and this is across all states I have worked in.

HCL chap can’t blame anyone but themselves, if they could not innovate in spite of having state patronage.
You can not say they were not innovating. I still remember my first home PC was HCL easybee which used to be highway selling branded PC in India till end of 2000s decade.
PC and IT hardware manufacturing was simply not sustainable in India. China and Asia Pacific simply under cut us in cost.
HCL and wipro's Hardware division simply sirf. There was on sampron something laptop company from Bengal too.
You could not just complete with global manufacturers on cost.
 

LondonParisTokyo

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I think the biggest issue in India is the beaurcracy. I saw somebody post an excellent solution, which is to provide a time limit before a decision automatically passes. Like a 2 week window or something. You request something to get done, they have two weeks to review it. If after two weeks, it hasn't moved, its automatically approved. Something seriously needs to change. Modi is overreliant on a beaurcracy that clearly does not care about his priorities and has historically shown, does not have a rats *** about the country it is supposed to help.
 

SKC

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What happened to the Ambitious Supercomputer project started in NDA-1 time? I think so far i have heard about only 2 super comps to come online after that. we have only 4 systems in 500 list currently i think.
 

Haldilal

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What happened to the Ambitious Supercomputer project started in NDA-1 time? I think so far i have heard about only 2 super comps to come online after that. we have only 4 systems in 500 list currently i think.
No just 2 as of June Chinese have taken over the field With the introduction of Pratyush and Mihir, India hopes to move from the 165th position to gain a position in the top 30s in the Top 500 in the world.
 

shade

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GoI needs to invest money into setting up a proper semiconductor fab for commercial purposes( not like the SCL fab that makes chips for ISRO ), that will manufacture industry standard ICs for various companies, the chips don't have to be cutting edge nm wise from the start, better equipment can be purchased later on.
Sectors like microcontrollers, Analog ICs, lower end ARM, MIPS chips etc can be the starting point.

I'm mentioning GoI specifically because private investors do not have the will to invest here, they think it is too risky, GoI has to take an initiative, and this fab should be incorporated under a special law, so the normal productivity destroying PSU hiring and work culture practices do not take place.
 

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If we had a proper commercial grade fab, SHAKTI team could also fabricate their "microprocessor" class SHAKTI chip, this is a microcontroller grade chip.
It is very refreshing to see that they are still alive and successful, given that this is basically a university research project made up of around 2-3 professors and around 17 masters/PhD type students.
Hope GoI gives them more funding, they deserve it.
 

RoaringTigerHiddenDragon

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I think the biggest issue in India is the beaurcracy. I saw somebody post an excellent solution, which is to provide a time limit before a decision automatically passes. Like a 2 week window or something. You request something to get done, they have two weeks to review it. If after two weeks, it hasn't moved, its automatically approved. Something seriously needs to change. Modi is overreliant on a beaurcracy that clearly does not care about his priorities and has historically shown, does not have a rats *** about the country it is supposed to help.
you cannot blame everything on bureaucracy. The are two kinds of bureaucracies - strategic and tactical. The strategic bureaucracy makes the multi-billion dollar decisions that have far reaching impact for years to come. Along with Niti Aayog and international consultant, I am sure the government has enough knowledge and strategic insight to make the right decisions and approve funding etc. Now, the tactical bureaucracy that deals with everyday governance is where the rot is. Simply put, we are unable to attract sophisticated talent into our civil service. And then, this talent is not trained for 21st century needs. Unless the PMO overhauls the complete selection to training processes of top civil servants, we will meander along with an inefficient tactical bureaucracy making terrible mistakes every day. Sad but real.
 

N4tsula67

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Do we have enough water resources to establish a large scale FAB? 🤔
What about the news AMD interested in establishing a FAB in india ??
 

Haldilal

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Do we have enough water resources to establish a large scale FAB? 🤔
What about the news AMD interested in establishing a FAB in india ??
Yes there supersites planned in NOIDA, Benguluru, Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam, Nasik, Aurangabad, Vadodara, Kolkata, Rishikesh, Chennai, Jaipur, Indore if I can remember the names clearly but all that remained only on paper.
 
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SKC

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Money is the only thing u need for establishing a FAB.
And a Lot of it. The ASML machines itself costs billions. There is big waiting period also as most of the investory is already booked by big players (Samsung, Intel, TSMC, GloFo,etc).
 

Haldilal

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And a Lot of it. The ASML machines itself costs billions. There is big waiting period also as most of the investory is already booked by big players (Samsung, Intel, TSMC, GloFo,etc).
We can get it from the japanese players but still many would be dependent on that firm. We should alteast purchase second hand 12 NM to 10 NM equipments. Then slowly get experience. No one would invest such a big amount without proving our capabilities.
 

SKC

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We can get it from the japanese players but still many would be dependent on that firm. We should alteast purchase second hand 12 NM to 10 NM equipments. Then slowly get experience. No one would invest such a big amount without proving our capabilities.
I went overboard with the price. The 180-200 nm process machines cost around $50-100 million.
But ASML is the only current maker of extreme-UV (~13 nm) litho tools that are ready, or close to ready, for production use in real fabs.
Apart from ASML, currently only Nikon, Canon and Panasonic makes the litho machines but for much higher nm nodes.
85% of world supply is being done by ASML.
 

Haldilal

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I went overboard with the price. The 180-200 nm process machines cost around $50-100 million.
But ASML is the only current maker of extreme-UV (~13 nm) litho tools that are ready, or close to ready, for production use in real fabs.
Apart from ASML, currently only Nikon, Canon and Panasonic makes the litho machines but for much higher nm nodes.
85% of world supply is being done by ASML.
Then only the second hand is option as we done previously by purchasing the Tower Jazz equipmemts.
 

shade

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And a Lot of it. The ASML machines itself costs billions. There is big waiting period also as most of the investory is already booked by big players (Samsung, Intel, TSMC, GloFo,etc).
2nd hand equipment can be purchased, there is a huge market.

We can get it from the japanese players but still many would be dependent on that firm. We should alteast purchase second hand 12 NM to 10 NM equipments. Then slowly get experience. No one would invest such a big amount without proving our capabilities.
Not necessary to even get the 1gen before latest equipment like 10nm,there are a wide variety of ICs, there are analog IC's, microcontrollers, ARM processors of various kinds, MIPS based processors used in routers etc.

Ideally we should start small with the aforementioned IC types + RISCV SHAKTI type experimental processors, then move on to the higher end IC fabrication with high end equipment.

However all this will have to be done by government through a special purpose PSU, all private sector banias here don't want to take risk and takleef, no matter how many incentives are thrown at them.
 

shade

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btw in 2014 even back then there were plans for fabs but they never took off, and there was continous shilling by "eminents" and "experts" about how India "doesn't need" a Fab and how it will be a "white elephant" and all.
Now exact same people shilling FOR a Fab rather than against it, what gives?
 

SKC

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Then only the second hand is option as we done previously by purchasing the Tower Jazz equipmemts.
Yes, can be and should be done. This is how many south asian countries started FAB work, They purchased the machines from declining plants from EU and US and started in their countries.
Big process nodes like 180nm and 200nm are still in production. Z80 microcontroller is still produced and used in electronics. Other than consumer grade processors, most of the electronic stuff does not need extremely now node process.
 
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