India is yet to get Chip Manufacturing Companies

[Soumitra]

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

Oh yeah, you try to make a chip which can handle any frequency from VHF to L-Band just by software change. A chip which can be used for commercial 5G application as well as customized encrypted strategic military use. Not Intellectually stimulating my @$$

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

They do but they can't produce 32 nm chips

 

[ohmrlobalobayeh]

I don't understand the title of the thread.

Indian chip companies have been around for a long time:

 

[Soumitra]

@nahtanbob @Protest_again @jamahir

Our CEO has written a long blog about electronics and wireless communications industry in India and the road to the future

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/post-covid-19-world-opportunity-india-become-5t-economy-parag-naik/

 

[jamahir]

Oh yeah, you try to make a chip which can handle any frequency from VHF to L-Band just by software change. A chip which can be used for commercial 5G application as well as customized encrypted strategic military use. Not Intellectually stimulating my @$$

It may be difficult but is more an engineering challenge. You try designing a general purpose processor's simplified instruction set. It took me some years and I was alone.

India have already two 180nm microprocessors, one from ISRO & one from IIT.
Isro build first microprocessor at cost of just 11cr rupees.

More details please. Which IIT and what is the ISRO processor ?

@nahtanbob @Protest_again @jamahir

Our CEO has written a long blog about electronics and wireless communications industry in India and the road to the future

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/post-covid-19-world-opportunity-india-become-5t-economy-parag-naik/

OK, I will read it.

 

[Soumitra]

It may be difficult but is more an engineering challenge. You try designing a general purpose processor's simplified instruction set. It took me some years and I was alone.

So when is your micro processor coming into market. Have the communist Party invested in it, because obviously you cannot go for a capitalist private investor who will sell it, horror of horrors, for profit.

 

[jamahir]

So when is your micro processor coming into market. Have the communist Party invested in it, because obviously you cannot go for a capitalist private investor who will sell it, horror of horrors, for profit.

1. There was one person kind of connected to the CPI ( M ) who was supposed to critique the processor about two years ago but because of my mistake that did not happen.

2. I will approach a venture capitalist to look at the project as not for profit but for benefit of the country. I intend to somehow present the project as an open-source one. I haven't decided on the business model.

 

[Soumitra]

1. There was one person kind of connected to the CPI ( M ) who was supposed to critique the processor about two years ago but because of my mistake that did not happen.

2. I will approach a venture capitalist to look at the project as not for profit but for benefit of the country. I intend to somehow present the project as an open-source one. I haven't decided on the business model.

Good luck

 

[Arulmozhi Varman]

Back in 2006, everyone was raving about how India was going to become an IT superpower. Indians were bragging about how China can stay the factory of the world, while Indians would be the laboratory.

Now what? India is even weaker than it was back in 2006. India's "giants" are dwarfed by Western and Chinese tech companies. Its entire tech industry is dominated by Silicon Valley. That's why Silicon Valley loves India, because they can dominate it.

With India's track record, I'll believe it when I see it.

India is still the laboratory. India is a big name in chip design. There are small local companies who design design n consultancy works for big chip corporation. All chip companies have R&D in India.
But we do lack in foundaries. There is a small company investing for a factory in Chennai for generic IC and transistors. In manufacturing it's a start.

 

[Dark1]

Because companies like tata would rather invest in useless companies like British steel for 13 billion dollars in 2007 and jaguar for 2.3 billion dollars in 2008, rather than a 3 billion riskier investment in the chips industry in India.
Value of British steel today = zero. Sold by tata for 1 pound. Yup 13 b $ down the drain in 10 years. Ratan Tata zindabad.
Value of jaguar = all in loss , looking for bailout.
Another 2. 3 b $ down the drain.

People who criticize ambanis in comparison to the tatas are my pet peeve.
Reliance employees most of its employees in India. In comparison, tata has the airs of a global giant and pays heavy salaries to westerners.

@Soumitra would be better placed to answer , but the bottleneck is only in initiative.
Like China , India has to buy the equipment from abroad and the supplier hand holds the buyer for any new equipment, including training.

 

[jamahir]

@nahtanbob @Protest_again @jamahir

Our CEO has written a long blog about electronics and wireless communications industry in India and the road to the future

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/post-covid-19-world-opportunity-india-become-5t-economy-parag-naik/

Founds this one good :

For example, Make in India is heavily skewed towards replicating the Chinese model of the earlier century. Most polices framed are skewed to facilitate large MNCs to manufacture in India, while ignoring the SMEs.

Founds this one good :

Very often I have heard people lament on why India has not produced a Google or a Microsoft or an Intel ! That is a utopian ideal. One cannot plan to build a behemoth, it just happens. One can only create the right environment to build such a company.

But I disagree with this one :

The bureaucracy in India fails to understand this basic tenet of innovation. It is statistical in nature and has failure written all over it. Innovation and failure form a complementary dual pair like the “yin” and “yang” or the “purusha” and “prakriti”. Unfortunately, we have strongly imbibed the western reductionist models with disastrous results.

The Westerners ( and the Soviets and Japs too ) take the step of innovating out of experimentation but sadly in India we fear to experiment. Bangalore, the so-called Silicon Valley of India is not actually so.

Agree with this one :

One method to promote such innovation in technology could be that a government agency or PSU (like ISRO, BEL, ITI, DRDO etc.) identifies its technology need where it seeks to serve a large market and invites applications from MSMEs to develop it. The entry barrier that is usually put in place to eliminate MSMEs due to minimum thresholds should be reversed (keep a max threshold!) or eliminated. The notion that big companies alone can deliver technology should be discarded because all of the new age tech innovation has come from small companies that went on to become big. The PSU could then evaluate and select an MSME based on technical merit and track record. There should be no play for the notorious “L1” method where the lowest bidder wins through an unsustainable price irrespective of merit and very often fails to complete delivery. This process may be ok for straight forward manufacturing contracts but fails miserably in technology development and innovation. The selected MSME should then be funded by TDB (Technology Development Board) or similar agency through a grant (NOT a loan) for development of this technology. This would ensure there's market, funding and a bona fide company that can deliver.

Agree with this one :

On paper there exists a vibrant Venture Capital ecosystem in India. In reality these VCs are only slightly better than banks. They fund “me too” business models copied from the west with minor Indian tweaks to account for logistical challenges . No one focuses on the so called “deep-tech” companies. This largely because they don’t believe

1, ( like the bureaucrats ) That we can build technology in India

2. Most importantly, make a viable business out of technology products

To add a third point, the VCs play a safe game, investing most of the time in retail / e-retail companies from which they will get their Return on Investment in a matter of months.

So when is your micro processor coming into market.

I am yet to design the multimedia processing part. May take a year. And then the introduction to market.

Good luck

Thanks.

Because companies like tata would rather invest in useless companies like British steel for 13 billion dollars in 2007 and jaguar for 2.3 billion dollars in 2008, rather than a 3 billion riskier investment in the chips industry in India.

Interesting.

 

[Arulmozhi Varman]

Because companies like tata would rather invest in useless companies like British steel for 13 billion dollars in 2007 and jaguar for 2.3 billion dollars in 2008, rather than a 3 billion riskier investment in the chips industry in India.
Value of British steel today = zero. Sold by tata for 1 pound. Yup 13 b $ down the drain in 10 years. Ratan Tata zindabad.
Value of jaguar = all in loss , looking for bailout.
Another 2. 3 b $ down the drain.

People who criticize ambanis in comparison to the tatas are my pet peeve.
Reliance employees most of its employees in India. In comparison, tata has the airs of a global giant and pays heavy salaries to westerners.

@Soumitra would be better placed to answer , but the bottleneck is only in initiative.
Like China , India has to buy the equipment from abroad and the supplier hand holds the buyer for any new equipment, including training.

Do you know the profit margins of electronics manufacturing industry? Have you seen elec manufacturing companies stock sky rocketing? There is a reason. It's cut throat competition and only companies having some base in electronics design can take it forward. Previously all these contract manufacturers had some products for which they had their own facility. Companies like IBM, even Foxconn, started to manufacture some of their own products and it was only later they ventured into CM. It's cutthroat competition. Foxxcon has 2 factories in India and has 13 in China. Guess what. Those 2 doesn't make profits that one factory makes there. Tata or Ambani main industries aren't electronics or electrical. HCL and Wipro did dab with them for a while. The thing is even if one has money it isn't easy to create something and be successful from scratch.

 

[Dark1]

Do you know the profit margins of electronics manufacturing industry? Have you seen elec manufacturing companies stock sky rocketing? There is a reason. It's cut throat competition and only companies having some base in electronics design can take it forward. Previously all these contract manufacturers had some products for which they had their own facility. Companies like IBM, even Foxconn, started to manufacture some of their own products and it was only later they ventured into CM. It's cutthroat competition. Foxxcon has 2 factories in India and has 13 in China. Guess what. Those 2 doesn't make profits that one factory makes there. Tata or Ambani main industries aren't electronics or electrical. HCL and Wipro did dab with them for a while. The thing is even if one has money it isn't easy to create something and be successful from scratch.

Fully agreed with most of what you wrote. It's a risk but which our large conglomerates can easily afford looking at their investments abroad. It's a sunshine industry, not a sunset industry like steel , etc. India imports nearly 100 % of its chips and I can bet its atleast 10 to 20 b $ worth per annum. Look at the potential for import substitution. And I know Indian companies are already designing the chips and getting them manufactured from taiwan , why leave all the high paying jobs to the far eastern countries ? And the potential for export is always their. Foxconn just assembles phones in China and India and other countries. Nothing to do with chip manufacturing. Look at the state of china since usa started applying the squeeze. They are stuck with 35 nm chips now & are hoarding Taiwanese memory chips to face a future embargo.
India has to start someday or is it better to buy failing companies in uk for billions to stroke our ego ?

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Fully agreed with most of what you wrote. It's a risk but which our large conglomerates can easily afford looking at their investments abroad. It's a sunshine industry, not a sunset industry like steel , etc. India imports nearly 100 % of its chips and I can bet its atleast 10 to 20 b $ worth per annum. Look at the potential for import substitution. And I know Indian companies are already designing the chips and getting them manufactured from taiwan , why leave all the high paying jobs to the far eastern countries ? And the potential for export is always their. Foxconn just assembles phones in China and India and other countries. Nothing to do with chip manufacturing. Look at the state of china since usa started applying the squeeze. They are stuck with 35 nm chips now & are hoarding Taiwanese memory chips to face a future embargo.
India has to start someday or is it better to buy failing companies in uk for billions to stroke our ego ?

This is totally wrong. Who told you that Taiwanese memory chips are being stockpiled? Who told you 35 nm is the smallest process node at Chinese fabs? Who told you that any company that's not Huawei is impacted?

I expect Indians with experience in the semiconductor industry @Soumitra to hold intellectually dishonest Indians accountable. Your silence is complicity.

 

[nahtanbob]

1. There was one person kind of connected to the CPI ( M ) who was supposed to critique the processor about two years ago but because of my mistake that did not happen.

2. I will approach a venture capitalist to look at the project as not for profit but for benefit of the country. I intend to somehow present the project as an open-source one. I haven't decided on the business model.

Do you realize how cheap licensing ARM cores are ?

 

[nahtanbob]

India is still the laboratory. India is a big name in chip design. There are small local companies who design design n consultancy works for big chip corporation. All chip companies have R&D in India.
But we do lack in foundaries. There is a small company investing for a factory in Chennai for generic IC and transistors. In manufacturing it's a start.

there needs to be infrastructure improvements to support electronic manufacturing. that would create demand for semiconductors.