MoU signed for semiconductor research

India's semiconductor ecosystem strengthening continued in June 2026 with multiple MoUs signed between academic institutions and industry partners focused on...

What Happened

India's semiconductor ecosystem strengthening continued in June 2026 with multiple MoUs signed between academic institutions and industry partners focused on research, chip design, and workforce development.
Notable agreements include: SRM Institute of Science and Technology (SRMIST) with IVP Semiconductor for indigenous chip design and power semiconductor research; University of Hyderabad and IIIT-H for collaborative VLSI and semiconductor technology programmes; and a tripartite agreement between Chennai Institute of Technology, National Formosa University (Taiwan), and a Taiwanese semiconductor materials firm for a joint doctoral research programme.
These institutional partnerships are aligned with India's India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) and the broader goal of reducing dependence on foreign semiconductor supply chains — a strategic vulnerability exposed by the 2020–22 global chip shortage.
The research MoUs complement already-approved fabrication investments under ISM, signalling a shift from attracting foreign fabs to building indigenous research and design talent.

Static Topic Bridges

India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) and Semicon India Programme

The India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) was established in 2021 as the nodal agency to implement the Semicon India Programme, which received a financial outlay of ₹76,000 crore to build a comprehensive domestic semiconductor and display ecosystem. The programme provides fiscal support of up to 50% of project cost to approved applicants in semiconductor fabrication, display fabrication, compound semiconductors, packaging, and chip design.

ISM 2.0 has a provision of ₹1,000 crore for FY 2026–27, with strong emphasis on industry-led research and training centres.
The Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme provides up to 50% of eligible R&D expenditure (ceiling ₹15 crore per application) and a deployment-linked incentive of 4–6% of net sales turnover over five years (ceiling ₹30 crore).
ISM has approved 10 projects across six states with total investment commitments of approximately ₹1.6 lakh crore (USD 17–19 billion).
Approved projects include the Tata Electronics fab in Dholera (Gujarat) in partnership with PSMC of Taiwan, and a CG Power–Renesas facility in Sanand (Gujarat).

Connection to this news: The research MoUs directly support ISM's emerging priority of building indigenous R&D capacity — moving India up the value chain from packaging and assembly toward front-end design and process innovation.

Semiconductor Value Chain: From Design to Fabrication

The semiconductor value chain involves multiple specialised stages, each requiring distinct capabilities and capital investment. Understanding the chain is essential to placing India's current position and aspirations in context.

Design (Fabless): Creating chip architecture using Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools. India already hosts significant design activity — over 2,000 chip design companies and 20% of the world's chip design engineers work in India.
Fabrication (Foundry/Fab): Manufacturing chips on silicon wafers using photolithography. Extremely capital-intensive; dominated globally by TSMC (Taiwan), Samsung (South Korea), and Intel (US). India's Tata-PSMC fab will use mature-node (28nm+) technology.
Packaging (ATMP/OSAT): Assembling and testing fabricated chips. Less capital-intensive; India's entry point into the manufacturing value chain.
Materials: Specialty chemicals, ultra-pure gases, and silicon wafers. The India-Taiwan collaboration specifically targets semiconductor materials research.
VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration): A chip design methodology that integrates billions of transistors on a single chip; core curriculum for India's semiconductor engineering programmes.

Connection to this news: The academic MoUs target the design and research layers, where India already has latent strength through its engineering talent base. Building institutional research infrastructure is the missing link between India's design services heritage and full-stack domestic semiconductor capability.

Atma Nirbhar Bharat and Critical Technology Supply Chains

The COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020–22 global chip shortage exposed the strategic risks of concentrated semiconductor supply chains. The automobile sector, consumer electronics, and defence systems all experienced production shutdowns due to chip unavailability. This catalysed a global wave of "chip nationalism" — the US CHIPS and Science Act (2022, USD 52 billion), EU Chips Act (2023, €43 billion), Japan's semiconductor programmes, and India's Semicon India Programme all emerged from the same strategic logic.

Semiconductors are classified as critical minerals/materials under India's Critical Minerals List (2023), recognising their strategic importance.
India's dependence on chip imports is near-total: domestic consumption of semiconductors was approximately USD 24 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach USD 110 billion by 2030.
The global semiconductor industry is dominated by just a handful of fabs: TSMC alone manufactures approximately 90% of the world's most advanced chips.
India's approach of combining large fab projects (capital-intensive, long gestation) with academic R&D MoUs (knowledge infrastructure, faster results) represents a parallel-track strategy.

Connection to this news: The semiconductor research MoUs are not isolated academic agreements — they are part of a deliberate national strategy to build the human capital and institutional knowledge base that will sustain India's fabrication investments over the long term.

India-Taiwan Technology Partnership

Taiwan is the world's leading semiconductor manufacturing nation, home to TSMC, UMC, and a dense ecosystem of chip design firms, equipment makers, and materials suppliers. Despite having no formal diplomatic relations, India and Taiwan have significantly deepened practical cooperation in semiconductors, with technology transfer, joint research, and industry-academia partnerships emerging as the primary channels.

India and Taiwan established a semiconductor sub-committee under their bilateral dialogue framework to coordinate fab investments and research collaboration.
The Tata Electronics–PSMC (Taiwan) partnership for the Dholera fab is the highest-profile expression of this cooperation.
Academic programmes linking Indian and Taiwanese institutions (such as the Chennai IT–National Formosa University doctoral programme) facilitate knowledge transfer in areas where formal government-to-government agreements are not possible.
ASML (Netherlands), the monopoly supplier of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines required for advanced chips, has signed an MoU with Tata Electronics to support India's first commercial fab.

Connection to this news: The tripartite India-Taiwan semiconductor research MoU is a microcosm of the broader strategy: using academic and industry-to-industry channels to build research depth and international network access that sovereign constraints on formal diplomacy would otherwise limit.

Key Facts & Data

Semicon India Programme has a total outlay of ₹76,000 crore; ISM 2.0 adds ₹1,000 crore for FY 2026–27 with a focus on R&D.
ISM has approved 10 projects across six states with ₹1.6 lakh crore in investment commitments.
India hosts over 2,000 chip design companies and approximately 20% of the world's chip design engineers.
India's semiconductor import dependence was ~USD 24 billion in 2021; projected to reach USD 110 billion by 2030.
Approved fabrication projects include Tata Electronics–PSMC (Dholera, Gujarat) and CG Power–Renesas (Sanand, Gujarat).
The US CHIPS Act (2022) committed USD 52 billion; the EU Chips Act (2023) committed €43 billion to domestic semiconductor manufacturing.
TSMC accounts for approximately 90% of global advanced chip production.
India's DLI Scheme provides up to 50% of R&D expenditure reimbursement, capped at ₹15 crore per application.