PM chairs Semiconductor Roundtable with leading CEOs

1. At a Glance

• PM Narendra Modi chaired a Semiconductor Executives' Roundtable at his residence (7, Lok Kalyan Marg) with global chip industry CEOs. [1]
• Reflects India's push to become a global semiconductor manufacturing/design hub under the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM). [2]
• Relevant for GS-III (S&T, industrial policy, Atmanirbhar Bharat in electronics) and current affairs-linked Prelims facts.
• Ties into broader "China+1" and global chip supply-chain diversification narrative.

2. Why in the News

• PM held a roundtable with top global semiconductor CEOs; companies attending included SEMI, Micron, NXP, PSMC, IMEC, Renesas, TEPL, Tokyo Electron, Tower, Synopsys, Cadence, Rapidus, Jacobs, JSR, Infineon, Advantest, Teradyne, Applied Materials, Lam Research, Merck, CG Power and Kaynes Technology. [1]
• CEOs subsequently issued statements appreciating the meeting and lauding India's semiconductor push, including at SEMICON India 2024 in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. [1][3]

3. Background & Evolution

• India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) established under MeitY to build the semiconductor and display ecosystem; functions as an Independent Business Division (IBD) within Digital India Corporation. [2]
• SemiconIndia 2023 flagged India's "rapid strides" toward semiconductor ambitions (statement by then MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar). [4]
• SEMICON India 2024 (Greater Noida, UP) — global CEOs lauded PM's leadership on semiconductors. [3]

4. Core Static Facts

Item	Detail
Nodal agency	India Semiconductor Mission (ISM), under Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) [2]
ISM structure	Independent Business Division (IBD) within Digital India Corporation [2]
Current ISM CEO	Shri Sushil Pal [2]
ISM location	Electronics Niketan, 6-CGO Complex, New Delhi-110003 [2]
Roundtable venue	PM's residence, 7, Lok Kalyan Marg [1]
Key attendee firms	Micron, NXP, PSMC, IMEC, Renesas, Tokyo Electron, Tower Semiconductor, Synopsys, Cadence, Rapidus, Infineon, Advantest, Teradyne, Applied Materials, Lam Research, Merck, CG Power, Kaynes Technology [1]
Related flagship event	SEMICON India 2024 held at Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh [3]

5. Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Economic

• Aims to attract FDI in semiconductor fabrication, packaging (ATMP/OSAT), and design — reducing import dependence on chips. [1]
• Domestic players like CG Power and Kaynes Technology signal India's entry into assembly/packaging alongside global majors.

Geopolitical/Strategic

• Fits into global supply-chain diversification away from concentration in Taiwan/China, aligning India with US, Japan (Rapidus, Tokyo Electron), and other partners. [1]
• Strategic hedge for critical technology (chips are dual-use — defence, telecom, AI hardware).

Scientific/Technological

• Roundtable covered chip design (Synopsys, Cadence — EDA tools), fabrication equipment (Applied Materials, Lam Research, Advantest, Teradyne), and materials (Merck, JSR). [1]
• PM linked semiconductors to the "Digital Age" and India's digital infrastructure pillar. [1]

Governance/Administrative

• PM personally engaging CEOs signals top-level facilitation, easing "compliance burden" — cited explicitly as a policy pillar in the meeting. [1]
• ISM as an IBD (not a full statutory body) reflects an agile execution model outside traditional ministry structure.

6. Recent Developments (last 12-18 months)

• SEMICON India 2024 held in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh — CEOs praised PM's leadership. [3]
• PM has separately held roundtables with AI/deep-tech startup CEOs (distinct from semiconductor CEOs), showing a pattern of sector-specific investor/industry engagement. [1]

7. Prelims Hooks

• India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) operates under MeitY, not DST or DPIIT. [2]
• ISM functions as an Independent Business Division (IBD) of Digital India Corporation. [2]
• Semiconductor Executives' Roundtable was chaired by PM at his residence, 7, Lok Kalyan Marg. [1]
• SEMICON India 2024 flagship event held at Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. [3]
• Companies present included both foreign majors (Micron, Infineon, Tokyo Electron, Rapidus) and Indian firms (CG Power, Kaynes Technology). [1]
• Rapidus is a Japan-based semiconductor company reflecting India-Japan tech cooperation angle. [1]
• PM described semiconductors as "the basis of the Digital Age." [1]

8. The Money Is Approved on Paper but Hardly Spent

• Semicon India has spent only a small part of what Parliament gave it
• Fund use was 23% in 2023-24 and just 9% in 2024-25; about 61% is expected to be spent in 2025-26 [5].

• Against a budget of Rs 6,903 crore in 2024-25, actual spending was Rs 638 crore [5].

• Why this happens — the scheme pays only after the company builds

• Money under the scheme is released only when a selected company meets its own construction and production targets [5].
• So a low spending figure does not always mean the scheme failed. It can also mean the factories are still being built.

• But it does mean a headline like "Rs 76,000 crore for chips" [6] tells you what was promised, not what has reached the ground.

• How an aspirant should use this — never quote the outlay alone in an answer. Quote outlay and utilisation. That single pair shows you understand the difference between approval and delivery.

9. India Is Winning the Packaging End, Not the Chip-Making End

• Ten approved projects, but only one is a full chip-making foundry
• As of December 2025, 10 semiconductor projects worth Rs 1.6 lakh crore were approved. Of these, one is a foundry (a plant that actually prints circuits on silicon) and nine are OSAT units — outsourced assembly and testing, the last step where a finished wafer is cut, packed and checked [5].

• Assembly and testing is the lowest-value step in the chain. Design and fabrication hold the value [5].

• This is also the sensible first step, and it should be said so in an answer

• A modern fab costs about USD 10 billion to set up [5], and a single advanced EUV lithography machine (the machine that prints the tiniest circuits) costs about USD 150 million and is made by only one company in the world, ASML of the Netherlands [6].

• Chips for cars and home appliances use older 180-40 nm and 130-90 nm nodes [6] — these India can realistically make. Phone and laptop chips below 15 nm it cannot, yet.

• The gap is still very wide

• India is a net importer of chips worth USD 23.5 billion in 2024 — the single largest item in its electronics import bill [5].

• India's share of world chip exports is 0.02% [5].

• Cost disability is the quiet reason factories hesitate

• Making electronics in India costs 14-18% more for components and 10-14% more for assembly than in China, adding up tariffs on inputs, logistics and finance cost [5].
• Borrowing money in India costs 5-6 percentage points more than international rates, while China, Taiwan and Vietnam give interest subsidies that pull their rates down to 2-7% [5].

10. India Designs the World's Chips and Earns Almost Nothing from It

• The design paradox is the sharpest fact in this whole topic
• About 20% of the world's semiconductor design engineers work in India [5].

• But the total yearly revenue of India's own chip-design companies is less than Rs 150 crore [5].

• Why the two numbers do not match

• Those engineers work in the India design centres of foreign firms. The intellectual property (IP) they create — the patent, the design rights, the money it earns later — stays with the foreign parent company [5].

• So India supplies the brains and gets paid a salary, not a share of the product.

• What the government has tried, and how far it has got

• The Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme, launched in 2021 for five years, pays back up to 50% of design spending (capped at Rs 15 crore) and 4-6% of net sales (capped at Rs 30 crore) [5].
• As of December 2025, 23 companies with 24 designs have been supported [5]. That is real, but small against a world design market led by the US, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, which together earn 80% of global chip design revenue [5].

11. Every Country Is Paying for the Same Factory — What Others Put on the Table

• India's Rs 76,000 crore is roughly USD 10 billion [6]. Compare before you praise it.
• US CHIPS and Science Act, 2022: about USD 280 billion over ten years, of which about USD 53 billion is for building chip factories [6].

• EU Chips Act: about USD 46 billion of public and private money till 2030, with the stated aim of raising Europe's share of world chip production from under 10% to 20% [6].

• Why this matters for the roundtable

• The same CEOs sitting at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg [1] are being offered subsidies in three continents at once. India is not choosing a partner; it is competing for one.

• This is why the government's offer of 50% fiscal support for fabs and for ATMP/OSAT units [6] is best described as the entry ticket to the race, not a winning hand.

• Non-money factors decide the tie

• Taiwan's technology clusters offer 0% value added tax, corporate tax capped at 17%, and uninterrupted water and power [5].
• A fab needs ultrapure water in very large volumes and cannot tolerate a power dip — TSMC recycles about 87% of its waste water against an industry average of 42% [6]. India's power supply, PRS notes, is still unreliable and costly in many parts [5].

12. Is a CEO Meeting Just Optics? The Honest Answer

• The strongest argument against the event — a roundtable produces photographs and praise, not fabs. CEOs praised India at SEMICON India 2024 too [3], yet in the same period the scheme spent 9% of its budget [5]. Applause is free; a USD 10 billion plant is not.
• What is right about that argument — the note's own facts show approvals are concentrated in assembly, not fabrication [5]. Nothing said at a roundtable changes the cost and power gaps above.
• Where the argument is too harsh
• Investment decisions in this sector are approval-heavy. NITI Aayog (2026) found India's approval process is fragmented and sequential, with repeated paperwork and separate portals for central, state and municipal clearances, and recommended a single approval process across all three levels through a strengthened National Single Window System [5].
• When clearance is the bottleneck, direct access to the head of government is itself a benefit for a firm. That is exactly why the meeting listed easing the compliance burden as a pillar [1].

• It is also real that domestic firms like CG Power and Kaynes sat at the same table as Micron and Applied Materials [1] — that is supplier linkage being built, not just goodwill.

• The fair verdict for an answer — the roundtable is a useful instrument of investment facilitation. It is not evidence of outcome. Judge the mission by utilisation, by how many of the 10 projects start production, and by how much of the value moves from packaging to fabrication and design.

13. Fixes That Have a Named Owner

• MeitY and ISM should report the scheme by milestones, not only by money spent
• Today low spending [5] can mean either slow construction or slow approval, and nobody outside can tell which.

• Publishing plant-wise progress would let Parliament see which of the 10 approved projects [5] is actually moving.

• Government should act on NITI Aayog's single-window recommendation

• NITI Aayog (2026) asked for one unified approval process across central, state and municipal levels, standard data and form formats, and clearance timelines that can be legally enforced [5].

• Without enforceable timelines, a roundtable promise of easier compliance [1] depends on one office following up each time.

• The Design Linked Incentive scheme should be aimed at keeping IP in India

• The scheme's present caps — Rs 15 crore on design spending and Rs 30 crore on sales incentive [5] — are too small to make a firm keep a valuable chip design in India rather than sell the rights.

• India already has the engineers: 20% of the world's chip designers [5]. The missing piece is ownership, not talent.

• Skilling must be fixed at three separate levels, not as one programme

• NITI Aayog (2024) found too few institutes dedicated to electronics manufacturing, and a gap between what graduates learn and what industry needs [5].

• The gaps differ by level: entry-level operators lack familiarity with manufacturing equipment, mid-level supervisors lack lab access and are trained on outdated practice, and senior engineers and managers lack technical leadership skills [5].

• ISM 2.0 is the right direction and should be watched

• Announced in Budget 2026-27 with Rs 1,000 crore, it focuses on making semiconductor equipment and materials in India, building full-stack Indian chip IP, and strengthening supply chains [5].
• Equipment and materials is where Japan and the Netherlands earn their power in this industry [6] — so this is the correct next fault line to attack.

14. Anchors for Answers

• Data: Semicon India fund use — 23% in 2023-24, 9% in 2024-25, about 61% expected in 2025-26 [5]
• Data: 10 projects approved as of December 2025, Rs 1.6 lakh crore investment — one foundry, nine OSAT units [5]
• Data: India's net chip imports USD 23.5 billion in 2024; India's share of world chip exports 0.02% [5]
• Data: 20% of the world's chip design engineers are in India, but India's own design industry earns under Rs 150 crore a year [5]
• Data: Making electronics in India costs 14-18% more (components) and 10-14% more (assembly) than in China [5]
• Report/Committee: PRS Demand for Grants 2026-27 Analysis, MeitY (March 2026) [5]; PRS Science & Technology Policy Brief on Semiconductor Chip Manufacturing (March 2023) [6]; NITI Aayog assessments of 2024 and 2026 on skills and ease of doing business [5]
• Comparison: US CHIPS and Science Act 2022 — about USD 280 billion over 10 years, USD 53 billion for factories; EU Chips Act — about USD 46 billion till 2030 to lift EU share from under 10% to 20%; against India's Rs 76,000 crore (about USD 10 billion) [6]
• Comparison: Taiwan's technology clusters offer 0% VAT, 17% corporate tax cap and uninterrupted water and power [5]
• Scheme: Design Linked Incentive (2021, five years) — 50% of design spend capped at Rs 15 crore, 4-6% of net sales capped at Rs 30 crore; 23 companies supported by December 2025 [5]
• Scheme: India Semiconductor Mission 2.0, Budget 2026-27, Rs 1,000 crore — semiconductor equipment and materials, full-stack Indian chip IP, supply chains [5]

15. Mains Relevance

• GS-III: Science & Technology — indigenization of technology; Infrastructure — Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc. (electronics manufacturing infrastructure); Industrial Policy.
• GS-II: Bilateral/multilateral relations relevant to technology partnerships (Japan, US, Taiwan-linked firms).
• Possible question stems: 1. Discuss the strategic and economic significance of India's semiconductor manufacturing push. Evaluate the role of the India Semiconductor Mission in achieving self-reliance in electronics. (GS-III) 2. How does global chip supply-chain diversification create opportunities and challenges for India's semiconductor ambitions? (GS-II/III) 3. Critically examine India's readiness — in terms of infrastructure, skilled manpower, and policy support — to become a global semiconductor hub. (GS-III)

16. Related Topics to Study Next

• India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) — the parent scheme driving this engagement.
• Semicon India Programme / PLI for semiconductors — the incentive framework behind fab investments.
• Atmanirbhar Bharat in Electronics Manufacturing — broader policy umbrella.
• Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme — chip design support tied to Synopsys/Cadence engagement.
• India-Japan technology cooperation — relevant given Rapidus/Tokyo Electron presence.
• Critical Minerals for electronics (rare earths, gallium) — upstream dependency for chip manufacturing.
• National Quantum Mission / AI Mission — parallel deep-tech missions under similar government engagement model.

17. Common Errors / Trap Areas

• Do not confuse India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) with Digital India Corporation — ISM is an IBD within DIC, not a separate statutory ministry wing. [2]
• Do not attribute ISM to DST or DPIIT — correct nodal ministry is MeitY. [2]
• Avoid conflating the Semiconductor Executives' Roundtable with SEMICON India 2024 — the roundtable was a smaller, residence-based CEO engagement; SEMICON India is the larger public flagship event at Greater Noida. [1][3]
• Don't assume all attendee firms are foreign — Indian firms (CG Power, Kaynes Technology) were also present, showing domestic capability building alongside FDI. [1]