- The electronics minister expects the number of semicon startups to reach three-digit with the government’s policy support
- During the event, Morphing Machines and Netrasemi were approved as ‘futureDESIGN startups’ under the Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme
With the aim to encourage innovation, facilitate investment and catalyse the startups’ ecosystem in the semiconductor design and manufacturing space, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Sh Rajeev Chandrasekhar recently launched the third Semicon India Future Design roadshow at IIT Delhi. It is part of a series of roadshows organised by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) across the country.
Stressing upon the initiative’s primary objective of attracting global investments to help build a vibrant semiconductor design and manufacturing ecosystem in India, the minister pointed out the outlay of Rs 76,000 crores for the semiconductor sector. “Already there are 27-28 semicon startups and the number will soon go up to 100, with the Government’s policy support,” he said.
As per the minister, a slew of measures for the semiconductor sector have been put in place by the government. For instance, Indian Semiconductor Research Center (ISRC) has been set up to partner with top institutions to come up with cutting-edge semiconductor research. Also, added the minister, Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL) is being modernised and VLSI/ semiconductor curriculum is being implemented to deliver a talent pool of 85,000 who will create innovative designs and solutions.
Emphasising the digital economy’s expansion from being centred around IT/ITES to covering the entire spectrum of technology like Deep Tech, AI, Space, and Semiconductors, Sh Chandrasekhar said that the government is actively collaborating with industry, startups and academia to transform India from a consumer of technology to its producer.
Members of the academia including IIT Delhi Director Rangan Banerjee, industry leaders, and startups were present at the launch event. During the roadshow, global semiconductor leaders like Mr Hidetoshi Shibata, President and CEO of Renesas Technology and Dr Vivek Lall, Chief Executive of General Atomics also shared their vision and expressed interest in collaborating with Indian startups.
With a belief that the next unicorn will be from the fabless chip design area, during the 3rd roadshow, the government approved Morphing Machines and Netrasemi as ‘future design startups’ under the Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme. Morphing Machines is focusing on a dynamic runtime reconfigurable RISC-V many cores accelerator, with near ASIC performance across diverse domains & heterogeneous applications, all on the same homogeneous fabric. Netrasemi is providing edge AI chipsets, and platforms enabling smart vision and domain-specific SoC solutions with advanced AI/ML and hardware acceleration capabilities.
