$10-billion semiconductor PLI to help India do in a decade what China did in 25-30 years: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

financialexpress.com:

India is on track to becoming a key player in the global semiconductor supply chain in the next decade with USD 10 billion of incentives and assistance provided to encourage local chip manufacturing, Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Thursday. The production-linked incentive scheme last year attracted firms like Vedanta and Taiwan’s Foxconn, who promised multi-billion dollar investment in setting up units to manufacture chips, which are used in products ranging from mobile phones to cars.

Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said there is “not one person in the semiconductor global ecosystem” that does not see India as “a very credible, viable and fast charging destination for semiconductor investments and innovation”. He also said that India is on track for the next 10 years in the semiconductor space with USD 10 billion (about Rs 81,993 crore), compared to China’s three decades of progress.

“We are on track to do in the next 10 years with these USD 10 billion, what countries like China took 25-30 years and could not succeed.” He mentioned the ATMP project with Micron will create 5,000 jobs and 15,000 indirect roles in the semiconductor industry. “Micron is a global leader in memory (solutions),” he said.

“Sometimes there are people with either lack of understanding or … deliberately will characterize the last 15 months of effort in different ways. But the India story on semiconductor… the vision of India being a semicon nation has started a few months ago for the first time after 70 years,” he said.

The government is implementing a “comprehensive curriculum” in partnership with the industry for creating 85,000 globally skilled talent for VLSI (very large scale