India to expand chip sops to cover supply chain

As the first phase of India's chip incentives ends, the government is looking to expand the scheme to boost indigenous design and bring components and other parts of the supply chain under the India Semiconductor Mission.

- Shouvik Das & Jatin Grover

"India does not need only chip fabs (fabrication plants) and testing plants, but also equipment suppliers, material suppliers, gases and chemicals are all areas that were not covered under ISM's (the semiconductor mission's) first plan, and need attention," said S. Krishnan, secretary in the ministry of electronics and information technology (Meity).

"These areas were previously covered under the Scheme for Promotion of Manufacturing of Electronic Components and Semiconductors (Specs), which completed its tenure," he told Mint in an interview. "Now, a part of this has been replaced by the electronics component manufacturing scheme (ECMS), which very specifically focuses on electronics components. The semiconductor part of it is what will now come under ISM 2.0." The plan comes ahead of the fourth Centre-backed Semicon