Semicon India 2026: India’s semiconductor ecosystem expanding; opening new opportunities, says Modi
Semicon India 2026 was inaugurated at Yashobhoomi (India International Convention and Expo Centre), New Delhi, running from 17–19 September 2026 under the theme "Transform Tomorrow: Silicon to Systems — Building the Ecosystem."
At the inauguration, it was stated that India's semiconductor ecosystem is expanding rapidly, opening new opportunities for innovation, investment, and growth.
The event was told that commercial chip production has begun at new plants in Mohali and Surat, marking a shift from pilot lines to commercial-scale output.
The second phase of the India Semiconductor Mission was announced, with an outlay reported at $13.5 billion (approved by the Union Cabinet in July 2026 at roughly ₹1,27,500 crore), broadening the mission's focus beyond fabs and packaging to chip design, R&D, equipment and materials, additional fabs, talent development, and ATMP/OSAT (assembly, testing, marking and packaging / outsourced semiconductor assembly and test) capacity.
The event is being jointly held by the India Semiconductor Mission, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), and industry body SEMI, with participation from over 600 companies across 52 countries.
India Semiconductor Mission (ISM), 2021
The ISM is India's flagship scheme to build a domestic semiconductor and display manufacturing ecosystem, reducing reliance on imports for a technology deemed critical to electronics, defence, telecom, and strategic autonomy.
Key Details
- Approved by the Union Cabinet on 15 December 2021 with an initial outlay of ₹76,000 crore.
- Operates under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) as a Special Purpose Vehicle (Digital India Corporation-linked) that appraises and approves projects.
- Offers fiscal support of up to 50% of project cost for silicon fabs, compound semiconductor/display fabs, and Assembly, Testing, Marking and Packaging (ATMP)/OSAT units, as well as support for chip design (Design Linked Incentive, DLI scheme).
- By late 2025, roughly 10 projects worth about ₹1.6 lakh crore had been approved across 6 states, including Micron's ATMP unit in Sanand, Tata-PSMC's fab in Dholera, and CG Power-Renesas in Sanand.
The Mohali and Surat plants reaching commercial production are direct outputs of ISM-approved projects; the newly announced Phase 2 outlay builds on this ₹76,000-crore Phase 1 base to scale the mission's ambition.
Semiconductor Value Chain (Design – Fab – ATMP)
The global semiconductor industry is structured around three broad stages, and countries specialise differently across them — a key exam-relevant distinction.
Key Details
- Design: Creating the chip's circuit architecture (India has a large chip-design workforce, especially for global multinational design centres, but historically less domestic IP ownership).
- Fabrication (Fab): The capital-intensive process of manufacturing chips on silicon wafers; globally concentrated in Taiwan (TSMC), South Korea (Samsung), and the US.
- ATMP/OSAT: Assembly, Testing, Marking and Packaging — the less capital-intensive, more labour-intensive back-end stage where India's first Mission-backed projects (e.g., Micron Sanand) began.
Phase 2's stated focus on expanding beyond fabs and packaging into chip design, R&D, and equipment/materials signals India's attempt to move up the value chain rather than remain concentrated in the ATMP segment.
Global Semiconductor Supply Chain Concentration
Semiconductor manufacturing is one of the most geographically concentrated high-technology supply chains in the world, making it a recurring subject in India's technology and economic-security policy discussions.
Key Details
- Taiwan's TSMC alone fabricates a majority of the world's advanced logic chips, creating a single-point-of-failure risk often termed the "Taiwan risk" or "silicon shield."
- This concentration, combined with geopolitical tensions in the Indo-Pacific and pandemic-era supply disruptions, prompted multiple countries (the US CHIPS Act, EU Chips Act, and India's ISM) to launch domestic incentive schemes around 2021–2022.
- India's approach relies on incentive-linked private investment (including global players like Micron, Applied Materials, and PSMC/Tata) rather than a state-owned fab model.
Semicon India 2026's emphasis on ecosystem-building and Phase 2 expansion is framed as reducing India's — and partly the world's — dependence on a narrow set of East Asian fabrication hubs.
- Semicon India 2026 ran from 17–19 September 2026 at Yashobhoomi, New Delhi.
- India Semiconductor Mission Phase 1 outlay: ₹76,000 crore (approved December 2021).
- India Semiconductor Mission Phase 2 outlay: reported at $13.5 billion (about ₹1,27,500 crore), approved by the Union Cabinet in July 2026.
- Around 10 ISM-approved projects worth roughly ₹1.6 lakh crore are under implementation across 6 states as of late 2025.
- Commercial chip production has begun at plants in Mohali and Surat under the Mission.