India's semiconductor industry has potential to grow to $40 billion by 2030: IESA

The Indian semiconductor industry can grow to $40 billion by 2030 by promoting the ecosystem around the supply chain, including chemicals and gases involved in the making of electronic chips, a senior official of industry body IESA said on Friday.

Speaking at the IESA Vision Summit, India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA) President Ashok Chandak said India needs to learn from the global centers of semiconductors as it is a very complex technology.

"Any chip-making touches at least more than 10 countries. It is very complicated. If we have to make semiconductor manufacturing successful in India, we have to take care of the supply chain that includes gases, chemicals and materials, and most of the supply chain has to happen with the plants that are going to manufacture semiconductors," Chandak said.

He said that in 2022, IESA had released a report on the groundwork that needs to be done from the semiconductor ecosystem and it has now released a report which highlights all the manufacturing cases for India.

"Overall, we estimate that the supply-chain-related market worldwide is going to increase to $420 billion by 2030 and if we aspire for about 10% share that means we are looking at a possible opportunity of $40 billion. This could happen through some of the global companies moving their base to India to make for India and also for exporting," Chandak said.

With the existing framework, India's semiconductor industry can grow to $10 billion by 2030, according to the report.

The IESA report on the semiconductor supply chain said India will require approximately 1.5 million skilled workers and 5 million semiskilled workers across the value chain by 2026-2027.

The report expects high demand for workforce for roles like processing, equipment engineer, IC testing engineers, and capacity planning managers.

Over the next two to five years, numerous job opportunities in design, manufacturing, training, supply chain management, chemical and materials engineering, packaging, testing, and logistics are anticipated, the report said.

Chandak said the interest of global stakeholders is growing towards India and the same was reflected at the 19th IESA Vision Summit held here.

He said that over 30 memorandums of understanding were signed at the IESA Vision Summit including that of Tata Electronics' with PSMC and Himax, among others.

"Semiconductor is a very niche industry but also a pillar for the digital revolution. We had over 2,400 registrations for the event. During the inaugural session, over 1,750 people were present. We have seen more than 250 international leaders, in addition to the Indian counterparts joining this, which reflects upon the interest of global firms in India," he said.