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India Must Focus on Fabless Startups, Not Building Fabs

IMAGE S UTTERSTOCK

As it became increasingly diffi cult to plateau in the sector’s growth Will India’s country that was not considered a target
hire from top schools, semiconductor semiconductor tech sector go the way of market for smartphones a couple of decades
companies looked to second-tier schools Singapore’s, which lost a large chunk of its ago now has more than 00 million smart-
to fulfi ll their hiring needs. outsourced IC design business as it lost its phone users. iaomi has grabbed the bulk of
New electronics-engineering graduates cost advantage over the years the market share for smartphones in India
were far less equipped than the previous Some industry watchers argue that serious by focusing on low-cost smartphones, as
generation to deliver on projects, largely policy intervention is required in India to problem-solvers on the street have found
because the engineering curriculum had reinvigorate growth, including concrete steps innovative ways to use those devices to run
become outdated. Some schools touted toward building a semiconductor fab in the their micro-businesses and fi eld solutions
a LSI curriculum but taught only the country. But I believe India should focus on related to mobility, last-mile connectivity,
basics of digital and analog circuits, with becoming a global hub for the fabless semicon- and education.
a chapter on fabricating a 2u transistor. ductor ecosystem, focusing on strengthening Indeed, with an economy approaching
This slowed the pace of capability devel- that ecosystem by moving up the value chain. US$ trillion and a population exceeding
opment and diversifi cation in India’s IC India’s design sector should learn from the 1 billion, India confronts growing challenges in
design industry. evolution of IC companies like Broadcom, those areas as well as in pollution containment
With the heavy infl ux of Chinese con- ualcomm, and Nvidia, as well as Arm — a and energy, water, and food supply. Those
sumer products into the country and company that achieved tremendous growth societal challenges all pose opportunities for
with IT software jobs taking over product based on soft intellectual property (IP) alone. startups willing to funnel energy and resources
design, most of the Indian companies that India’s industry participants need to into building solutions. omegrown IC design
had provided a strong pool of ready talent evolve. SoC integrators that perform only companies therefore have a chance to up
trained in electronics design either closed parts of IC development and design must their game by becoming providers of low-cost
up shop or became shadows of their move up the value chain to become self- chipsets and IP for design sockets in products
former selves. suffi cient in defi ning and architecting that might ship in the millions of units to meet
During the Great Recession of 200 complete specifi cations of an IC or an IP the requirements of India’s market alone.
200 , the LSI sector in India, for the core, building analog and RF IP, integrating In my opinion, that is the best way for
fi rst time, experienced job cuts and lost SoCs, validating and characterizing silicon, Indian IC design companies to build global
some of its sheen. and enabling designs and products based on visibility and achieve attractive valuations. ■
2012 began a period of tremendous con- the designed chipset. This would extend the
solidation in the semiconductor industry, country’s cost advantage by at least another Meenakshi
with reductions in year-over-year (YoY) decade and make India the destination of Vashist is CEO
growth rates worldwide. The IC design choice for establishing a complete IC busi- of TekUncorked
industry in India became top-heavy as ness group that directly interfaces with global AIIoT, which
hiring freezes barred fresh talent from customers and markets. provides IoT-, AI-,
entry and as experienced engineers opted Long-term growth of this sector also and ML-based
to stay cozy in their roles rather than requires supportive startup policies and mat- smart mainte-
diversify and venture into related indus- uration of the investor mindset to encourage nance-product
tries. As a result, offshore design centers startups and businesses in deep tech. The solutions for the
in India began losing their signifi cant archetype of startup founders in India is infrastructure and power sector in India. She
cost advantage. young college grads, but companies pursuing has been associated with the Indian semi-
I believe the IC design sector in India has deep tech, including chip design, need found- conductor and systems industries for more
slipped from its former position as one of the ers who have signifi cant experience in the than 30 years, having worked at the Indian
most sought-after segments for tech workers. sector and its application domains. Space Research Organization, C-DoT, Temic,
Does this inevitably mean an irreversible India is a cost-sensitive mass market. A Motorola, and Freescale Semiconductor.

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