Date: 07/02/2012

Is 'All is well' for India electronics and semiconductor industry

One of the most neglected industry; electronics and semiconductor manufacturing has become one of the important areas for the Government now and also in the comings years. India can't neglect this industry any more. If neglected there is going to be a flood of not-made-in-India electronics devices to hit Indian market and suck our money. So there is an opportunity to create this flood internally and also hit other market in the world.

The big question: Is the Indian industry ready? It looks the Indian industry is not ready and now hurrying to take this opportunity.

First of all, there is no world-class eco to manufacture electronic equipment industry. Majority of the human resources with electronics qualification are deeply engaged in application-software services. The fresh talent is not industry ready. The basic material and manufacturing equipment need to be imported to make either components or semiconductor chips and even simple PCBs. Now much of the product is designed using design software and expensive test gear to test them. Though India boast so much about software, some of the good Indian companies which have developed design software got acquired by companies whose IP is not in India.

Amid all these problems, let's go Aamir Khan way in his 3 Idiots movie and tell "all is well".

What to do for really create "all is well" confidence in this industry:
There are nice to read initiatives from the Union government on ESDM sector. Read the initiatives taken by the Government in electronics, and telecom at http://www.mit.gov.in/content/electronic-hardware and
http://www.dot.gov.in/NTP-2011/NTP2011.htm

Industry is looking at implementation-success rather than interesting plans on paper. Earlier, Union Government and State Government of Karnataka framed semiconductor policy with the inputs from ISA, both have not gone well in implementation. This time best brains in the industry such as Sam Pitroda are behind the plan, suggesting a success this time.

At this year's ISA Vision Summit 2012 (5th and 6th Feb 2012), the tele-presentation by Prof. S.V. Raghavan, Chief Architect and Chairman, Technical Advisory Committee of National Knowledge Network was energizing and exciting. It gives the feeling of "ALL IS WELL" for daring technomics experts. The URL of National Knowledge Network is http://www.nkn.in.

Have a cup of tea, visit these sites, enjoy the reading, relax for a while and imagine the opportunities and see what WE can do.