For decades, India was celebrated as the world’s IT back office — a land where code was written, apps were tested, and chips were designed, but never made. The irony was striking: India’s engineers powered global semiconductor giants like Intel, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments, yet the nation itself imported nearly every chip it used. From smartphones to satellites, the heartbeats of modern electronics came stamped with Made in Taiwan or Made in Korea.
That is beginning to change. India, driven by a potent cocktail of strategic necessity, geopolitical shifts, and homegrown ingenuity, is finally scripting its own silicon story.
The Long Road: From Dependency to Determination
The Indian semiconductor dream isn’t new. Back in the 1980s, the Semiconductor Complex Limited (SCL) in Mohali was set up with much fanfare. But a devastating fire in 1989 and policy paralysis relegated India to the margins of the chip race. 
Instead of fabs, India became a design powerhouse. By the late ’90s, nearly every major semiconductor company had design centers in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Noida. Indian engineers drafted the blueprints of chips that would later power iPhones, Teslas, and cloud servers — but the wafers were always manufactured abroad.
This design-only identity became both a strength and a limitation. India earned credibility in the global value chain but remained dependent on imports worth over $23 billion annually by the mid-2010s.
Chronic Evolution of Facilities: The Reawakening
The digital boom — smartphones, 5G, EVs, IoT — pushed India’s import bills sky-high and exposed vulnerabilities during the COVID-era chip shortages. Suddenly, self-reliance in semiconductors was no longer an ambition; it was survival.
Enter the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM), launched in 2021 with a $10 billion incentive package. And unlike earlier half-hearted attempts, this time the groundwork is visible on the ground.
In Sanand, Gujarat, Micron is setting up a $2.75 billion Assembly, Testing, Marking and Packaging (ATMP) facility. This is India’s first large-scale memory packaging plant, expected to generate 5,000 direct jobs and over 15,000 indirect ones when operational by 2025.
Just a few hundred kilometers away in Dholera, Gujarat, the Vedanta–Foxconn JV announced a $19.5 billion fab and display unit project. Though still navigating roadblocks, it symbolizes India’s boldest step into the high-stakes wafer fabrication game.
The Tata Group is quietly emerging as a semiconductor heavyweight. Through Tata Electronics, it is building OSAT (Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Testing) units, exploring tie-ups with Renesas (Japan) and STMicroelectronics (Europe), and eyeing the automotive and industrial chip space.
Meanwhile, ISRO and DRDO have been expanding their homegrown capacity. The Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL), Mohali, once dormant, has been upgraded for 180nm nodes, while ISRO’s facilities in Chennai are developing GaN and SiC chips critical for space and defense missions.
The R&D front is buzzing too. Startups like InCore, Morphing Machines, and Sankhya Labs are designing indigenous IP cores and accelerators, while academia is breaking barriers — IIT Madras with Shakti and RISC-V, IISc with photonic chips, and TIFR with quantum qubit prototypes.
India is no longer just dreaming of fabs — it is laying down fabs, packaging plants, OSAT facilities, and research hubs, brick by brick.
The symbolic breakthrough came not from a fab, but from academia. At IIT Madras, engineers developed the Shakti processor family, based on open-source RISC-V architecture. This wasn’t just another chip; it was India’s declaration of intent. A 64-bit microprocessor, made indigenously, with applications from IoT devices to defense systems.
Then came Vikram 3201 (IIT Madras again) — a low-power microprocessor tailor-made for embedded systems. Following closely was Kalpana-32, designed for aerospace and navigation.
These weren’t commercial blockbusters, but milestones of sovereignty. For the first time, India wasn’t just using chips — it was creating them.
The Global Link: Assimilating Advanced Tech like Rapidus
While self-reliance is critical, no nation builds semiconductors in isolation. Recognizing this, India began forming strategic alliances.
Japan’s Rapidus Corporation, which aims to mass-produce 2nm chips by 2027, is a perfect example. By partnering with such advanced players, India can leapfrog technology nodes and integrate cutting-edge processes into its ecosystem. Similar collaborations with TSMC, Samsung, and U.S. giants are already in the works.
The future Indian semiconductor landscape may well be a hybrid of indigenous innovation and global collaboration.
Beyond Silicon: India’s Tryst with New Frontiers
Silicon Carbide (SiC) Chips
With the EV revolution, SiC chips are game-changers. They handle higher voltages, generate less heat, and drastically improve energy efficiency. Indian firms and research labs are piloting SiC fabrication for electric vehicles, power grids, and defense electronics.
Photonic Chips
Traditional silicon struggles with the data deluge of AI and 5G. Photonic chips, which use light instead of electrons, are emerging as the answer. India’s premier institutes like IISc Bengaluru are pioneering silicon photonics research — vital for data centers and AI accelerators.
Quantum Qubits
Semiconductors form the backbone of today’s computing — but tomorrow’s computing may rely on quantum. India has entered this race too. TIFR, IISc, and IITs are exploring superconducting qubits, photonic qubits, and spin qubits, with government support under the National Quantum Mission (2023).
Coming of Age: India’s Silicon Yatra
India’s semiconductor growth story is no longer a pipe dream. From the ashes of SCL to the rise of Shakti, from chronic import dependence to Micron’s assembly lines, India is slowly but surely claiming a seat at the global semiconductor high table.
The journey is far from over. Building a fab is not just about money; it requires ecosystems of suppliers, decades of experience, and relentless innovation. Yet, with policy tailwinds, academic breakthroughs, and global partnerships, India is finally playing offense, not just defence.
From Outsourcing to Ownership
India’s rise in semiconductors is more than a tech story; it is a sovereignty story. Chips are the oil of the 21st century — powering everything from smartphones to supercomputers, missiles to medical devices.
For years, India outsourced this crown jewel of technology. Now, with Shakti, Vikram, Kalpana, and beyond, it is reclaiming ownership. Add to that the frontiers of SiC, photonics, and quantum, and the message is clear:
India is no longer content being the world’s IT back office. It is gearing up to be a fab-frontier nation in the global chip race.
