New Delhi: The Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Jitin Prasada, informed the Rajya Sabha during the Winter Session on 5 December that India has rapidly emerged as a major global hub for electronics manufacturing over the past decade.
He said the country has recorded a six-fold increase in electronics production and an eight-fold rise in electronics exports.
Mobile phone manufacturing has expanded significantly, with a 28-fold increase in production and a 127-fold surge in exports. According to industry estimates, the sector now employs more than 25 lakh people.
Providing an update on India’s semiconductor mission, Prasada said the government has so far approved 10 semiconductor manufacturing projects across six states with a cumulative proposed investment of around Rs 1,60,000 crore. Under the Design-Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme, fiscal support has been sanctioned for 24 proposals involving a total investment of around Rs 900 crore.
These projects focus on designing chips and System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions for diverse applications, including satellite communication, drone detection, surveillance systems, IoT power management, LED drivers, medical technology, broadband, smart meters, gas sensors and general-purpose microprocessor IP cores for edge AI.
Prasada further stated that access to advanced chip design tools has been extended to nearly 300 educational institutions nationwide. As part of this initiative, chip designs from these institutions are invited quarterly for fabrication at SCL Mohali.
A total of 122 designs from 46 institutions have been submitted so far, of which SCL has successfully fabricated 56 student-designed chips and delivered them to the respective institutions.
