UPSC Prelims Practice Questions — The future of India’s chip industry
Q1. The 2026 roadmap titled 'Future of India's Semiconductor Industry', which charts a USD 120-150 billion value chain by 2035, was prepared exclusively by which one of the following bodies?
- A. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology
- B. India Semiconductor Mission
- C. NITI Aayog's Frontier Tech Hub
- D. Department of Science and Technology
Q2. The India Semiconductor Mission (ISM), the nodal body driving the 'Chips for Viksit Bharat' programme and ISM 2.0, functions under which one of the following?
- A. Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade
- B. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology
- C. Department of Telecommunications
- D. Department of Science and Technology
Q3. With reference to the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) and India Semiconductor Mission 2.0 as announced in the Union Budget 2026, consider the following statements:
1. ISM 2.0 has been announced with an outlay of ₹40,000 crore, in addition to the original ISM corpus of ₹76,000 crore.
2. Unlike the original ISM, which centred on fab and ATMP capacity creation, ISM 2.0 explicitly targets semiconductor equipment manufacturing, materials and full-stack Indian IP.
3. ISM 2.0 fully supersedes the original ISM and terminates fiscal support already extended to the ten projects approved under it.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- ISM 2.0 has been announced with an outlay of ₹40,000 crore, in addition to the original ISM corpus of ₹76,000 crore.
- Unlike the original ISM, which centred on fab and ATMP capacity creation, ISM 2.0 explicitly targets semiconductor equipment manufacturing, materials and full-stack Indian IP.
- ISM 2.0 fully supersedes the original ISM and terminates fiscal support already extended to the ten projects approved under it.
- A. 1 only
- B. 1 and 2 only
- C. 2 and 3 only
- D. 1, 2 and 3
Q4. With reference to the 'More-than-Moore' strategy advocated in NITI Aayog's 2026 semiconductor roadmap, consider the following as areas of priority manufacturing focus for India:
1. Bleeding-edge sub-3 nm logic node fabrication
2. Mature logic nodes
3. Advanced Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) packaging
4. Wide-bandgap compound semiconductor materials
Which of the above is/are correctly identified?
- Bleeding-edge sub-3 nm logic node fabrication
- Mature logic nodes
- Advanced Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) packaging
- Wide-bandgap compound semiconductor materials
- A. 1, 2 and 3 only
- B. 2 and 4 only
- C. 2, 3 and 4 only
- D. 1, 3 and 4 only