Indian Electronics Manufacturing Developments : News, Updates and Discussions

[randomradio]

Actually if an Indian company gets sanctioned in the same way Huawei is getting sanctioned, having all the manufacturing capability is not going to do a damn thing. Huawei is not short of manufacturing muscle. What is denied to them is something totally different. It is among other things.

1. Market access.
2. OS / App marketplace access.
3. Software and standards to synthesize cores : Think Mentor graphics softwares like CADENCE.
4. IP Cores from fabless fellows like Qualcomm

Hence the need to have end-to-end technologies. Both software and hardware.

None of these things require a manufacturing base.

That's the next step of technology denial.

For example, TSMC is a Taiwanese company. Great. But what happens if, within the next 5-10 years, China takes over Taiwan? Even China will be able to sanction India, not just the US. One can sanction supplies, the other can sanction IP. US can even sanction supplies if they want to, they have both.

I don't think you have still realised the importance of GoI designating fab plants as a strategic sector. It means it has to be run in the country even if run at a loss. Right now import substitution is the most import thrust area for the next 15 years when it comes to manufacturing.

https://www.meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/Strategic_PlanDIT_FINAL_110211.pdf

Matters relating to promotion and manufacturing of Semiconductor Devices in the country.

 

[randomradio]

That has been happening forver since the microprocessor was created. The only thing that is happening the amount of cores will keep increasing. CpU size is going to get smaller. We have just broken another threshold with the 7nm chips and it can still go smaller. It can still go smaller but then increasing the amount of cores becomes a problem. And we will have expensive chips still. Also people keep forgetting how much chip requirements will massively increase once IoT becomes mainstream...

Need new materials to go to the next level at the high end.

Silicon chips are reaching their limit. Here's the future

A tech step-change will be needed if our gadgets are to keep getting smaller and faster

www.techradar.com

In the future, photonics will become the main thrust area, moving away from electronics. You can actually say that photonics will be considered the first real step into the Fourth Industrial Revolution from the hardware side of things.

 

[AbRaj]

Incorrect, HMD Global is a Finnish company with major shareholders being Foxconn FIH mobile, Smart connect fund via ex-Nokia executive and finally Nokia itself. And even Foxconn is not Chinese, it is from Taiwan.

Interesting indeed as it started as a Chinese company as far as I remember

 

[Bali78]

Is that all you got out of it?

I wrote the price off of my memory. And it was for i9.

Intel Core i9: Everything we know about Intel’s hypercharged PC processor

Intel has filled in the rest of the details on its Intel Core i9 microprocessor family for PCs, and started shipping all of them, too. Now with a review of the 18-core Core i9-7980X and 16-core Core i8-7960XE!

www.pcworld.com

Core i9-7980XE: (2.6GHz, 4.4GHz burst) 18 cores/36 threads, $1,999

Off the mark by $1. The same price as those chips you were talking about.

Yes. Because the rest of it is some theory in your usual way. Why do you think, I gave examples of peanuts ? Because most of the chips in any electronic gadgets are priced below $1 and the profit margin is less than 10 cents in most cases!! BTW these chips are already sold in 100s of millions and billions in some cases and yet companies are struggling to survive. The WiFi chip I was involved in, has already sold 2 billion units and the business unit is not profitable so far. May be semiconductor companies shall hire you as consultant to revitalize their strategy since you have some great insight which is not so obvious to industry folks.

BTW, did you check the price of the same processor in 2020? Quoting 2017’s price in 2020? Very relevant!!

And India will need 10 million such high end processors every year?? Did you bother to check what is the market size as of today? And why would intel or AMD care to manufacture them in India ?

 

[Bali78]

That has been happening forver since the microprocessor was created. The only thing that is happening the amount of cores will keep increasing. CpU size is going to get smaller. We have just broken another threshold with the 7nm chips and it can still go smaller. It can still go smaller but then increasing the amount of cores becomes a problem. And we will have expensive chips still. Also people keep forgetting how much chip requirements will massively increase once IoT becomes mainstream...

7 nm is old news. 5nm chips are already in market (Apple M1 processor) and 3nm work is in progress. IoT has come and gone from strategy prospective. It was hot in 2014-15 and terribly flopped from both top line as well as bottom line prospective. These days it’s all about AI and ML in custom processors and integrating them in cloud. Starting from Facebook to Tiktok to Tesla, everyone has jumped into this segment. Basically the consumers ( System companies) are jumping into chip design and in the process killing traditional semiconductor companies.

 

[_Anonymous_]

Yes. Because the rest of it is some theory in your usual way. Why do you think, I gave examples of peanuts ? Because most of the chips in any electronic gadgets are priced below $1 and the profit margin is less than 10 cents in most cases!! BTW these chips are already sold in 100s of millions and billions in some cases and yet companies are struggling to survive. The WiFi chip I was involved in, has already sold 2 billion units and the business unit is not profitable so far. May be semiconductor companies shall hire you as consultant to revitalize their strategy since you have some great insight which is not so obvious to industry folks.

BTW, did you check the price of the same processor in 2020? Quoting 2017’s price in 2020? Very relevant!!

And India will need 10 million such high end processors every year?? Did you bother to check what is the market size as of today? And why would intel or AMD care to manufacture them in India ?

The solutions you're suggesting is sub optimal. At some point soon, our electronic import bill is going to outstrip our oil import bill & leave it behind not just by miles but thousands of miles in a short while.

We still don't know how much the current plan of import substitution by adopting MII is going to work out in spite of optimistic articles & predictions. The present situation is untenable.

There has to be some way we can build up our own fab facility in spite of the current competition. China is doing it for entirely different reasons - they've already been isolated & excluded from the world's supply chains - an event they couldn't have been unforeseen but whose suddeness & timing may have been so.

At some point given their obvious plans to dominate world manufacturing & rewrite rules on its own, they definitely would have factored it in. Hence the need to backward integrate on this front. Having said that, with Trump out of the way, the Chinese would definitely breathe easily though their plans to go down the same path of backward integration would continue as before with more urgency perhaps to mitigate against further future damage.

 

[AbRaj]

I am not for GOI to blindly invest or end up creating cartels which monopolize technology (if we indeed create any). It just we are not doing it the right way. We should be looking at grass root level like universities to create a culture of innovation. Given the amount of equipment we import, even if 5% of it is invested in creating facilities in universities to work on current technology that will be great. We need to show that intention of creating things instead of following stuff just for sake of procedure.

We need to have that progressive attitude of wanting to compete with rest of the world instead of just saying our import bill is now lesser than before. This is going to be a long haul of another 10-15 years of persistent and consistent policy to convince companies to take risk and invest.

Semiconductor fabrication is highly capital and resource hungry and highly risk prone industry. its definitely not the job of universities to set up foundries. No sane minded industrialist will ever invest in this industry without risk mitigation. just look at Wikipedia for currently functional semi foundries and their owners and also the list of defunct ones. Most of them are either Govt backed or owned by giants like Samsung etc which can use them in their own producs if things go south unlike TI and STM

 

[AbRaj]

There are only a few big fabs left at the cutting edge nodes namely TSMC, Intel and Samsung. Even AMD now uses TSMC. These latest fabs cost tens of billions of dollars and upto five years of time. So, nobody is opening that in India. There is no starting small in this industry, you either go big and scale or you fail. Of course you can run a small military use fabs at older, much higher lithography which we already do.

We can start by setting up Fabless design units and later maybe when we will gain enough experience and confidence, a foundry to churn out our own designs ?

 

[AbRaj]

G

Game over. Is that what you're saying?

He got it all wrong. A foundry is not just about Cutting edge technology. Its more to do with Economy of scale.

 

[AbRaj]

Do you know the margin in old technologies ?? You literally can't buy peanuts with that kind of money. Most chips are sold at less than $1 and that includes R&D, manufacturing and marketing costs. Chip manufacturing is dead and here in India we are so obsessed about chip fabrication !!

thats why Govt backing is must to survive that initial phase along with a captive market to use that low end stuff. its ho Korea did it and Taiwan doing it and also China is planning to do it

 

[Bali78]

The solutions you're suggesting is sub optimal. At some point soon, our electronic import bill is going to outstrip our oil import bill & leave it behind not just by miles but thousands of miles in a short while.

We still don't know how much the current plan of import substitution by adopting MII is going to work out in spite of optimistic articles & predictions. The present situation is untenable.

There has to be some way we can build up our own fab facility in spite of the current competition. China is doing it for entirely different reasons - they've already been isolated & excluded from the world's supply chains - an event they couldn't have been unforeseen but whose suddeness & timing may have been so.

At some point given their obvious plans to dominate world manufacturing & rewrite rules on its own, they definitely would have factored it in. Hence the need to backward integrate on this front. Having said that, with Trump out of the way, the Chinese would definitely breathe easily though their plans to go down the same path of backward integration would continue as before with more urgency perhaps to mitigate against further future damage.

I would love to see fabs in India. That was my dream during college days. But from pure business prospective it just doesn’t make sense.
I agree that our import bill will sky rocket for electronic components. But it can be easily handled by increasing export of completely built systems. For example, import all mobile components for $200 and build the mobile and export it for $600.
Strategically it could be a serious problem if our relationship go south with US. But I doubt we will ever go that far.
Even in China, Huawei is the only example which suffered from the fallout so far. Other Chinese companies like OPPO or Vivo have not been impacted.
China has been trying hard since mid nineties, but mostly failed in semiconductor fab business.
Fab business is hard and latest examples are Intel and Chartered semiconductor. It needs billions in investment and India shall invest it’s limited resources in more pragmatic manner.
As far as defense products are concerned, India shall certainly spend on R&D of those areas.

 

[Bali78]

thats why Govt backing is must to survive that initial phase along with a captive market to use that low end stuff. its ho Korea did it and Taiwan doing it and also China is planning to do it

I disagree. We have missed the bus and now it will be a money pit. No matter how much support government provides, it’s next to impossible to be profitable. Korea and Taiwan started decades back when semiconductor margins were super high.

 

[AbRaj]

I disagree. We have missed the bus and now it will be a money pit. No matter how much support government provides, it’s next to impossible to be profitable. Korea and Taiwan started decades back when semiconductor margins were super high.

That doesn't prevent newcomers coming in. we have the same advantage as the Chinese do ie a huge captive market. govt have to just show intent and of course a bank full of money

 

[Bali78]

That doesn't prevent newcomers coming in. we have the same advantage as the Chinese do ie a huge captive market. govt have to just show intent and of course a bank full of money

Many newcomers as well as established players have tried and failed including many in China. And we certainly don’t have that kind of money to waste. Rather than chip fabrication India shall focus designing it’s own chips. It can be done at a fraction of the cost and provides far better returns.

 

[AbRaj]

Many newcomers as well as established players have tried and failed including many in China. And we certainly don’t have that kind of money to waste. Rather than chip fabrication India shall focus designing it’s own chips. It can be done at a fraction of the cost and provides far better returns.

some of them got success and became giants like Samsung and TSMC while older established players went defunct like Texas Instruments
Then we need pvt but well established players and offer them some inticing deal like preferential market access

 

[Bali78]

some of them got success and became giants like Samsung and TSMC while older established players went defunct like Texas Instruments
Then we need pvt but well established players and offer them some inticing deal like preferential market access

Please go through this.

GlobalFoundries Stops All 7nm Development: Opts To Focus on Specialized Processes

www.anandtech.com

No private company would get into any domain which are known to be money pits. There is a reason why Apple, Qualcomm, Nvidia etc have stayed away from owning fabs. Now even Intel is going to outsource to TSMC. We don’t stand a chance.

 

[AbRaj]

Yes. Because the rest of it is some theory in your usual way. Why do you think, I gave examples of peanuts ? Because most of the chips in any electronic gadgets are priced below $1 and the profit margin is less than 10 cents in most cases!! BTW these chips are already sold in 100s of millions and billions in some cases and yet companies are struggling to survive. The WiFi chip I was involved in, has already sold 2 billion units and the business unit is not profitable so far. May be semiconductor companies shall hire you as consultant to revitalize their strategy since you have some great insight which is not so obvious to industry folks.

BTW, did you check the price of the same processor in 2020? Quoting 2017’s price in 2020? Very relevant!!

And India will need 10 million such high end processors every year?? Did you bother to check what is the market size as of today? And why would intel or AMD care to manufacture them in India ?

chips may be priced dirtcheap but the phones that have them are not dirtcheap and form the bulk of total sales. if you have mobile manufacturing plant, you are at the mercy of countries controlling these same foundries

 

[AbRaj]

Please go through this.

GlobalFoundries Stops All 7nm Development: Opts To Focus on Specialized Processes

www.anandtech.com

No private company would get into any domain which are known to be money pits. There is a reason why Apple, Qualcomm, Nvidia etc have stayed away from owning fabs. Now even Intel is going to outsource to TSMC. We don’t stand a chance.

LOL half if not more foundries are owned by pvt players and even those like TSMC and HSMC are majority owned by pvt players

 

[Bali78]

chips may be priced dirtcheap but the phones that have them are not dirtcheap and form the bulk of total sales. if you have mobile manufacturing plant, you are at the mercy of countries controlling these same foundries

Well, that way we are at mercy of many countries for things that are far more important than mobile phones. Second thing is even if we own the fab, where are the chips to be fabricated? Do we design any of the chips used in mobile ? So before jumping into fab, India shall first focus on chip design. We are pathetically lagging in that area in spite of having a huge talent pool!!

 

[Bali78]

LOL half if not more foundries are owned by pvt players and even those like TSMC and HSMC are majority owned by pvt players

Actually it’s mostly owned by private companies. But what does it prove? Point is when existing players are backing off due to business reasons, why would any new private company invest in a domain where probability of loosing money is extremely high.