Talking about the history of semiconductor development in India, what is little known is that the country had the potential to become an important center of global semiconductor manufacturing. However, an unexpected event completely changed the course of history, making India miss the opportunity to surpass TSMC.
01 Semiconductor Manufacturing Potential
In the high-tech industry, many people may not be optimistic about India, but in fact, they have made some achievements in semiconductor design. Almost all major companies in the semiconductor field have set up offices in India, where they design the world's most advanced chips, and also reserve a large number of talents for the Indian chip field.
It can be said that India is strong in the field of chip design. There are many chip design centers in India, and they have made achievements in network, microprocessor, analog chip design, storage system and other aspects.
But only in the production of semiconductors, India has achieved little. Many multinational companies have given up on India. After they design chips in India, they will be shipped to the United States, China, South Korea and other countries for production. As a result, India has a whole body of skills that cannot be used.
In fact, India's chip manufacturing industry was not so backward from the beginning, and India almost became the world's chip power.
In the 1960s, Silicon Valley semiconductor giant Fairchild considered outsourcing packaging and testing work to Asia, and once considered India. However, the corrupt bureaucratic system in India at the time deterred Silicon Valley companies, and finally chose Malaysia, the Philippines and other countries.
In the 1980s, India launched a plan for independent semiconductor manufacturing, hoping to develop the local chip industry, and spent a very large sum of 40-70 million US dollars, which was a lot of money at the time, and founded India Semiconductor Co., Ltd., referred to as for SCL.
In addition to electronic watch ICs, India is also involved in the field of microprocessors. The Indian government was already partnering with leading Japanese and American companies such as Hitachi and Rockwell to sell electronic watch ICs and microprocessors, giving India an advantageous starting point.
India later launched science parks to facilitate industrial agglomeration. India's progress has been rapid. By 1987, India's 5-micron process technology had already equaled the world-leading 0.8-micron technology of Intel, NTT, and Toshiba at that time, and TSMC had just been established at this time. India has also purchased advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment from the Netherlands, Japan and other countries, and the overall procurement problem is not that big.
But the good times didn't last long. A sudden fire destroyed all the achievements of India.
02 chip dream shattered
In 1989, a serious fire broke out in the SCL plant, completely destroying the plant. The cause of the fire is unknown, and various speculations are emerging, including accident, arson, insurance fraud, and even political factors. However, the fire completely killed the hopes of Indian semiconductors.
In the following 8 years, India worked hard to raise funds and re-entered the semiconductor industry, but unfortunately, Samsung has risen and TSMC has also caught up. With a series of operations, SCL has completely lost its competitiveness in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, and has been losing money year after year. It has drawn a large distance from the world's advanced chip manufacturers. Multinational companies no longer come to India to invest, and finally ended in failure.
03 Summary
India is not reconciled to failure, but the government's series of preferential policies and recovery plans ultimately failed. India had proposed in 2018 that it would take two years to achieve the goal of localizing all chips, but after 2020, there has been no progress in Indian chips, localization has failed, and the $15 billion chip market can only be opened to the world, of which China The proportion of chips has exceeded 65%.
Now that the Indian government has successively proposed a number of chip incentive plans, can India be ashamed? We will wait and see.
