Vaishnaw tours semicon and chip firms in Bengaluru

Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Information Technology, Electronics, Railways and Information and Broadcasting, held a semiconductor and chip tour in Bengaluru on Saturday, covering some of the upstream and downstream players in the ecosystem.

He met and interacted with leaders and employees of Texas Instruments (TI) and Qualcomm, top players in the semiconductor industry involved in IC (integrated circuit) design and component manufacturing. He also met and interacted with Zetwerk Electronics, a Bengaluru-based downstream player that provides electronic manufacturing services (EMS) in the semiconductor ecosystem.

According to the minister, semiconductor and chip design for India is a new industry with a scope of decades-long journey and investments in the sector could cross $200 billion in the coming years as the adoption of artificial intelligence accelerates and fast chips reimagine the electronic environment from traditional processing to intelligence-driven ultra-efficiency.

In the city, Mr. Vaishnaw also officially inaugurated the product research and development (R&D) center of Texas Instruments (TI). This 550,000-square-foot R&D facility features a shared workspace dedicated to developing world-class chip designs. The center also houses an end-to-end reliability laboratory equipped with advanced testing capabilities for a variety of environmental conditions, among many other integrated circuit design laboratories.

Texas Instruments, a Texas-based semiconductor and chip design firm, entered India more than 40 years ago by setting up its development center in Bengaluru in 1985, when technology was mostly a foreign word to most people and India and Karnataka were nowhere on the global technology map.

“TI India’s product development and design teams drive research and breakthrough innovations for customers around the world,” said Santhosh Kumar, chairman and managing director, TI India.

Later in the day, Mr. Vaishnaw inaugurated Zetwerk Electronics’ advanced manufacturing facility at KIADB High-Tech Hardware Park at Kodigehalli in Bengaluru.

2 nanometer Qualcomm chip introduced

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw unveiled a 2-nanometer semiconductor chip designed and developed by Qualcomm, a California-based semiconductor company, at its Bengaluru facility. This marks a significant advancement in advanced semiconductor design in the country and is an indication of the key role India plays in industry-specific and AI-ready chip design activities.

According to the company, this reflects the strength of Qualcomm’s Global engineering capabilities in collaboration with engineering development centers in Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad; This represents one of the company’s most advanced and skilled development footprints worldwide, as well as the largest engineering workforce outside the United States.