17 November 2022

Father of Pentium chip Dham says India will start chip-making in a year

Prasid Banerjee

NEW DELHI : Vinod Dham has signed up to be one of the advisers to the government’s India Semiconductor Mission (ISM). He, along with a group of individuals, will oversee proposals from firms looking to build semiconductor plants in India under the government’s production-linked incentive (PLI). In an interview, Dham, known as the father of the Intel Pentium chip, said he sees great progress on the country’s chip plans and expects some movement to happen 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 states, never with the federal government, 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 10 years, why can’t India take advantage of it?

Do you think the targets 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 has its 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 products, have their own machines, and bring their own people initially.

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

Could you elaborate?

Ideally, the partner coming in should have a product in mind. For that, the Indian market needs to be analysed to find our top 10 needs because we’re importing $180 billion worth of electronics. The rule of thumb is 10-20% of that is semiconductor value. If you round up, that’s $10-20 billion. These days, it’s more like 20 than 10, because the number of chips going into a device is larger, which gives you a $20 billion margin.

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