Atmanirbhar Semiconductors

Every era comes with a material that greases the wheels of civilisation. It is scarce in supply and control of it becomes a determinant of power. Like oil, which in the last 100 years became the commodity over which the world’s geopolitics revolved. In the immediate future at least, this role is being taken on by semiconductors. They are crucial in every sector related to electronics, from mobile phones to cars. During Covid, when the world went into lockdown, a semiconductor shortage meant Indian industry, which imported most of its requirements, was severely affected. Meanwhile, the artificial intelligence (AI) age has arrived and powering it needs GPUs, a version of semiconductors, whose creation and manufacture is a near-monopoly of two companies, the US-based Nvidia that owns the chips, and Taiwan-based TSMC that is contracted by Nvidia to manufacture them. The US has already started using the supply of GPUs as a foreign policy tool. Every nation that values its sovereignty now recognises the strategic need for their own semiconductor sector.  

  On September 2, India took one small leap towards self-reliance when Union Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw presented Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the first made-in-India 32-bit microprocessor at SEMICON INDIA 2025, an annual conference that showcases the nascent sector. The chip is called Vikram 3201 and has been developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It has, as its precursor, processors earlier used by ISRO for its space launches. The agency’s website says about the Vikram 3201: “The processor was fabricated at the 180nm CMOS semiconductor fab of SCL. This processor is an advanced version of the indigenously designed 16-bit VIKRAM1601 microprocessor which has been flying in the Avionics system of ISRO’s launch vehicles since 2009.”  

The Vikram 3201 might be for space applications and not connected to AI or GPUs, but is still a milestone because it shows that India’s ambition of semiconductor self-reliance is gathering momentum. GPUs too are part of the same umbrella of Atmanirbharta, but have a more distant timeframe set by the government. Meanwhile, the intellectual capacity that is needed is also being built up. On August 28, Vaishnaw, at the inauguration of CG Semi’s plant in Sanand, Gujarat, highlighting its role in the manufacture of pilot line chips, the ones made to be validated before full production, also spoke about a global shortfall of one million semiconductor professionals by 2032 and that being an opportunity. A Press Information Bureau release said, “To this end, the Government has partnered with 270 universities and equipped them with state-of-the-art semiconductor design tools. In 2025 alone, these tools recorded over 1.2 crore usages.” 

On August 15 this year, Modi thought the sector sufficiently important to include it in his Independence Day speech. He said that India should have been on the forefront of this technology much earlier. “We lost 50–60 years. Meanwhile, many countries mastered semiconductors and established their strength in the world. Today, we have freed ourselves from that burden and advanced the work on semiconductors in mission mode,” he added. 

Work on that front took off in 2021 when the Union Cabinet sanctioned ₹76,000 crore for the India Semiconductor Mission. This year, design centres for 3nm chips, the most advanced there is, were opened in two cities—Noida and Bengaluru. At SEMICON, ̨Modi highlighted how paperwork was being reduced and the private sector being included in achieving the ambition. There is a national single window system, which means entrepreneurs and investors in the sector get approvals faster. Companies like Tata and Micron are already producing test chips. “We are creating a complete ecosystem, an ecosystem where designing, manufacturing, packaging and high-ech devices, everything is available right here in India. Our Semiconductor Mission is not limited to just one fab or one chip manufacturing. We are creating a semiconductor ecosystem that makes India self-reliant and globally competitive,” he said. 

Indian industriesMade in IndiaNarendra Modisemiconductor