The Union Cabinet has approved a new semiconductor mission and a mobile phone manufacturing scheme aimed at strengthening India’s chip design, manufacturing and electronics supply chain.
The Union Cabinet has approved India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) 2.0 with a budgetary outlay of $14.8 billion, alongside a $7.3 billion Mobile Phone Manufacturing Scheme (MPMS), in a major push to expand the country’s electronics manufacturing ecosystem, according to The Economic Times. The approvals, cleared under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, form part of a broader package of seven Cabinet decisions worth around $25.5 billion.
Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the semiconductor package builds on the progress of Semicon India 1.0 and aims to strengthen India’s position in the global semiconductor supply chain.
ISM 2.0 is structured around six pillars covering chip design, semiconductor equipment and materials, fabrication capacity, advanced packaging, research and development, and talent development. The programme also seeks to attract investments across silicon fabs, compound semiconductor fabs, display fabs, and advanced packaging facilities. The government said 315 universities are already training students using industry-standard Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools, with nearly 68,000 students trained so far. Under the first phase of the mission, 12 manufacturing projects with cumulative investments exceeding $19.1 billion have been approved, while companies including Micron, Kaynes and CG Semi have already begun commercial production or are set to start operations.
On the design front, 24 semiconductor design projects have received financial support, while 105 startups and MSMEs have gained access to EDA tools to develop chips for applications ranging from IoT and artificial intelligence to telecom, drones and satellite communications.
“The semiconductor package was among seven major decisions cleared under the prime minister’s chairmanship,” Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said.
