New Delhi, Sep 16 (PTI) Picture a grain of sand. Ordinary silica, dug out of a beach or a quarry, worth almost nothing. Now picture that same sand purified to 99.99 per cent purity, sliced into a wafer thinner than a fingernail, and etched with billions of nodes.
That transformation — sand into silicon coverted to a working brain of glass and metal — is precisely the USD 900 billion business model of the semiconductor industry that will be displayed in full splendour at the three-day SEMICON India 2026, scheduled to be held here from September 17.
A semiconductor is simply a material, silicon, that conducts electricity better than an insulator like rubber but not as good as pure conductor like copper.
That in-between property is what makes it useful: engineers can switch it on and off, precisely, and at an unimaginable speed, to represent the ones and zeros that all modern computing runs on.
String together enough of those switches — transistors — in the right pattern, and you get a chip that can calculate, remember, or sense the world around it. Billions of such transistors, patterned onto a wafer of purified silicon, form the integrated circuits, or chips, that underpin virtually all electronic devices.
Government officials, chip companies and industry delegates from across the world will gather for SEMICON India 2026, an event that will see over 500 exhibiting companies from more than 20 countries showcasing next-generation technologies, innovations and solutions.
The event comes at a time when India is seeking to establish itself as a manufacturing base in the global semiconductor supply chain, a sector widely regarded as critical to modern economies.
There is almost nothing left in modern life that doesn’t depend on a semiconductor. The phone in your pocket has dozens of chips. So does a car, a refrigerator, the traffic light, the satellite overhead, and the missile defence system. A fighter jet needs chips to fly; a hospital ventilator needs chips to help a patient breathe; a bank needs chips to move money.
GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN The global semiconductor supply chain remains highly concentrated.
Taiwan’s TSMC is the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer and produces a majority of the most advanced logic chips. South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are dominant players in memory chips. The Netherlands’ ASML is the sole global supplier of extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, the equipment required to manufacture the most advanced chips.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed serious chinks in global semiconductor supply chain armour, with shortages affecting more than 169 industries worldwide.
Subsequent production setbacks and cost inflation dampened economic growth globally, underscoring the vulnerabilities of dependence on a concentrated group of suppliers. Today, the semiconductor industry is dominated by a few countries, including Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, China and the United States. Taiwan alone produces over 60 per cent of the world’s semiconductors and nearly 90 per cent of the most advanced chips.
In response to this, major economies, including India, have introduced subsidy programmes over the past few years aimed at expanding domestic chip manufacturing capacity.
INDIA’S SEMICONDUCTOR PUSH Earlier this year, during the AI Impact Summit in February, India formally joined the ‘Pax Silica’ coalition, marking a significant milestone in the strengthening of strategic technology and supply chain cooperation between New Delhi and Washington.
In 2021, the government approved the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM), with an outlay of about Rs 76,000 crore, to boost chip fabrication, design, and manufacturing.
While 12 projects have been approved under Semicon 1.0 — three of which have already started commercial production and 2-3 more are expected to follow suit by the calendar year-end — the Union Cabinet has also approved the next phase, Semicon 2.0, aimed at accelerating the development of a robust and resilient semiconductor ecosystem.
Tata Electronics is setting up India’s first commercial chip fabrication plant at Dholera in Gujarat, in partnership with Taiwan’s PSMC.
Tata Electronics’ semiconductor fab in Dholera commands a total investment of over Rs 91,000 crore with a capacity of 50,000 wafers starting per month (WSPM). The government, through the India Semiconductor Mission, has committed 50 per cent fiscal support on a pari-passu basis for eligible project costs.
Tata Electronics is also setting up a semiconductor manufacturing unit in Assam with an investment of Rs 27,000 crore. Micron Technology Inc. is establishing a semiconductor manufacturing facility in Gujarat with an investment of Rs 22,516 crore.
These facilities are expected to meet the rising demand for chips across essential industries, including automotive, telecom, aerospace, industrial automation, power electronics, and consumer devices. Notably, multiple sanctioned projects are utilising domestically-developed technology for semiconductor assembly, testing, and packaging.
The government is also supporting semiconductor research, innovation and design by providing design tools to more than 332 academic institutes and 105 startups.
Under the Design-Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme, 24 startups have been approved to work on critical applications.
As the SEMICON India begins, all eyes are on the next wave of investments and alliances that could propel India’s ambitions beyond chip assembly and packaging and deeper into owning full-stack capabilities across the entire semiconductor value chain. PTI ANK MBI ANK VHI VHI
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