Focus on semiconductor packaging right approach for India, says Applied Materials’ Prabu Raja

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Semiconductor packaging is poised to be an inflection point in India’s chip-making and fabrication push and the country has the right talent to become a manufacturing centre, Prabu Raja, president of semiconductor products group (SPG) at Applied Materials, told ET in an interview. The central government’s approach to starting with packaging and testing for semiconductors to build a complete ecosystem for chips is the right approach, Raja said on the sidelines of the Semicon 2023 conference in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Applied Materials, one of the leading global manufacturers of precision instruments for semiconductor fabrication, will invest $400 million to set up a collaborative engineering centre in Bengaluru, the company announced last month.Also read | US chipmaker AMD to invest $400 million in India by 2028 This would be the company’s second office in India, apart from its research and development centre in the same city.

“The new centre is for the development of all technologies that goes into our equipment, including design and engineering,” Raja said. “The R&D centre that we have supports the work that we do at our Santa Clara centre. So, we are doing a big part of that in India.

They will also be supporting the new centre.” The investment of $400 million will be made over the next four years and the company plans to construct a greenfield unit for the new operations. Applied Materials will not wait for the construction of the new centre to start collaborative engineering work in the country. It will start from its R&D centre, Applied Materials India president Srinivas Satya said.