Semicon is the new oil, India should give more sops for fab units: Qualcomm
BARCELONA : India should beef up the quantum of its $10 billion financial incentive scheme to attract semiconductor fabrication majors, said Rahul Patel, Qualcomm Technologies’ group general manager for connectivity, broadband and networking. Patel believes India is competing against developed nations like the US, Europe, Japan, and China, who are offering incentives worth tens of billions of dollars. “India is competing against developed nations.
Companies (fabs) are very capitalistic minded, they’re going to look for the best financial outcome, the size and longevity of the incentives and how competitive they are versus the US, China, Europe, Japan, South Korea," he said. “A $10 billion incentive is not the same as $40-50 billion. I'm sure it's not an issue of India not being capable, but it is going to be an issue where the priorities are spent." He noted that India did have a geo-political advantage globally as companies were trying to diversify away from China, even as the South Asian nation has a similar policy to other countries on owning semiconductor manufacturing capability.
Assembly, testing, marking and packaging or ATMP units were good starting points but getting the semiconductor fabs was critical, Patel said. “Semiconductors are the new oil," he said. Qualcomm, as a fabless chip design firm, was increasing investments in India on an annual basis and had the second largest research and development centre in the world in the country.
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