Date: 07/06/2012

DeitY selects Accenture as consultant to evaluate chip fab proposal

Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has awarded consutant firm Accenture a contract to evaluate India semiconductor fab proposal. Accenture to review investment proposals from chip fabrication companies interested in building semiconductor fabs in India.

"With an investment scope of billions of U.S. dollars, this strategic project holds considerable promise for Indian manufacturing," said Managing Director Krishna Giri, who leads Accenture's Health & Public Services business in India. "By bringing together investors, manufacturers and the government of India, this initiative will help build the critical collaboration that is needed to bridge the gap in domestic semiconductor production."

"Over time, the electronic hardware industry has the potential to become a significant contributor to India's GDP, much like the software industry is today." Adds Krishna Giri.

What's challenging for Accenture is to evaluate the investor, where the company not only has to fill the present gap but also adopts to fast changing semiconductor chip-manufacturing technology, where the trend is not just "Moore's Law" but is "More than Moore" concept.

'More than Moore' includes exploring new materials such Graphene, 3D fabrication, Maskless Lithography, putting digital, analog, RF, sensor, and even passive component in one device and a host of such other things.

Similar to case how ARM has taken care of processor IP design of many chip companies. In semiconductor manufacturing domain too, there are pure IP players emerging to support R&D part of semiconductor manufacturing. Good examples are IMEC and CEA-LETI. Both have host of chip making technology IPs.

Earlier the chipmakers dependent only on internal R&D in reducing chip integration geometries and other innovations. The trend now is clearly buying the IP from outside R&D companies.

Whoever is fab investor in India, either can have strong internal R&D or inseparable relationship with semiconductor R&D IP provider and also both. Interestingly software is playing important and increasing role in both material research, and manufacturing. The investor must have direct and indirect capabilities in EDA/design software.