Work on building chips in India may start within a year: Vinod Dham

Vinod Dham, also known as father of the Intel Pentium chip, has signed up to be one of the advisors to the government’s India Semiconductor Mission (ISM). He is among a group of individuals who is overseeing proposals from firms looking to build semiconductor plants in India under the government’s production linked incentive (PLI). In an interview, Dham said that he sees great progress on the country’s chip plans and expects movement to begin within a year. Edited excerpts:

What is different about India’s chip push this time around?

There were actually no trials in the past — there were isolated attempts by private individuals, mostly from abroad, who would work with state governments, never with the federal government, to try to launch a fab. It did not materialize for the obvious reason that there are lots of factors involved in building a fab — not just building a fab, but you need to build an entire ecosystem. I know it because I was invited to be a figurehead in those activities many times.

This is the first time that the government of India has come to a recognition that this technology is vital to India’s strategic interest, for it to gain some self-reliance, and to perhaps capitalize on the fact that if the whole world will take advantage of this market doubling in the next 10 years, why can’t India take advantage of it?

We are now sitting down and having intelligent people come up with the right policy to incentivize people to set up something so expensive, and determine what type of technologies we want. This is the first time a serious effort has been made, in a systematic and thoughtful manner, and leadership of minister level like Ashwini Vaishnaw and Rajiv Chandrashekhar (who are both technocrats) has been told to champion it. 

Do you think the targets we’re setting are achievable?

I see much more viability, probability and possibility of it happening now than ever before. If it’s all smoke and mirrors, then you can come and you will look good for a while, but it will eventually fizzle out. Let’s look at three-four different levels of it. If we sign up with an existing integrated device manufacturer (who have their own fabs), they can start tomorrow. It will take them 18 months or so to build a fab. Then, let’s say within two years, they build their own products, have their own machines, and bring their own people initially.

What we have given them is land, electricity, water etc, and incentive to the tune of 70%. They can start producing within a year or so after that, which makes it two-and-a-half, maximum three years.

The longer period is where we do a joint venture between an Indian partner and a foreign partner, where they bring in all the technology and equipment, and we bring in capital, management and skills. The challenge for both of them would be what product they should make in the fab.

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