Friday, July 19, 2013: The industry is the second highest contributor to India’s fiscal deficit and to correct the dis-balance, industry-veterans from the semiconductor and electronics industry have urged the government to set up embedded technology parks across the country to strengthen the value chain and spur growth.
“Considering the huge potential for embedded systems in domestic and international markets, the government should set up embedded technology parks to build an ecosystem that will add value and reduce imports,” Indian Electronics & Semiconductor Association (IESA) chairman Sanjeev Keskar said at an industry conference here.
At present, imports account for over 65 per cent of India’s electronic consumption. It is because of this, that these analysts suggest that there is some scope to ensure that indigenisation of the value chain from chip design to embedded software systems and manufacturing.
“Even in the 35 percent of domestic production, we need to increase the share of product design, components, integrated circuits and printed control boards to double the high value portion from nine percent currently,” said Kesker in a keynote address at the Embedded Software Conference (ESC 2013).
There is a growing demand for smartphones, tablets, intelligent vehicles, solid state lighting (LEDs), electronics in the healthcare sector and displays. This also means that there has been an expansion in the market aimed at ramping up local production across the value chain.
“Embedded technology parks will help build clusters and provide one-stop solution to stakeholders in the value chain and increase domestic production to 50 percent over the next few years,” Keskar told about 500 delegates participating in the seventh edition of the three-day tech summit.
A recent study by Frost & Sullivan for IESA pointed out that local electronics consumption is projected to touch a whopping $400 billion by 2020.
