By- Er. Rajesh Pathak
Produced from the rare earth materials like Silicon, Germanium and such other the semiconductor is an electronic device. It wields both the capacity of making required current flow, and obstruct either . This is a part of power-efficient technology that saves electricity. Be it remembered that due to its scarcity the country has faced shortage in electric-run vehicles few months back. Today in 300 colleges the course related to semi-conductor is made available to those interested
Silicon is initially extracted from the sands, and it undergoes the process of refinement thereafter . It is later transformed into crystal-chip, and then circuit is made with the application of chemicals in it(chip) through the help of Ultraviolet laser beam . Thereafter testing is done ; and lastly, the process of packaging . Today US leads in high-tech semiconductor designing in world. However, it is in India that 20% of chip- designing is executed for the companies of US , and that of other countries’. Malesia is the hub of assembling, testing, marking and packaging ; so in the advance chip manufacturing is Taivan. In assembling and manufacturing both China has it’s say. So in providing raw materials required for semiconductor it is Japan that rests on the top of the world.
Founded by Sherman Fairchild and Arthur Rock , the US company Fairchild wanted to set-up its Semiconductor-Plant in India as early as in 1970 . But the indifferent attitude of government and red-tapism as the government departments were captive to that the things could make no headway. And the Fairchild company took the direction to Malesia. The Semiconductor -ecosystem that we see in Malesia today is stood at the cost of India. More notably in 1980 again the US’s Texas Instruments showed interest for the same venture . And again before the country’s restrictive trade- policy and ,above this, the bureaucracy coming upon adopting its ever notorious die-hard wilful attitude that the country could not see beyond the option of preferring the import to fulfil the critical minerals need. Here this should also be noted that among the beginning lot of semiconductors that the world saw was ‘Cate Whiskers’ that was produced by none other than the iconic Indian scientist, Jagdish Chandra Basu. In the very beginning of 20th century itself that he had achieved this feat.
But now the Modi government has girdled up its loin to transform the entire semiconductor scenario of the country come what may. Under the supervision of the former IAS officer and now IT minister, Ashwini Vaishnav, and one who had worked in Intel company and former IT state minister of central Government , Rajiv Chandrashekhar , a 76000 crore Semicon-Mission was launched in 2022. The goal of Semicon-Mission is to build up inside the country itself the manufacturing-eco-system ; design-ecosystem ; research and talent development regarding whatever concerning the semiconductor .
Of late, IT minister Ashwani Vaishnav dedicated indigenously built 32 bit processor Vikram Chip to Narendra Modi. In the Rocket launching that the ISRO will make the use of it. Its design is done by the ISRO ; while in Semiconductor Laboratory of Chandigarh undergone its fabrication. From this where we grew to be strategically self-reliant ; the faith of global investors that we will be able to win in the future, either
Even though the challenges are no less. The years back that the studies in semiconductor engineering had been started in the countries like Taiwan, China, South Korea and America. Whereas in India it could be started as late as 4-5 years back in well-defined targeted manner. Though it is true that the world would require around 10 lacs skilled semiconductor work-force in the next 5 years , for which it is looking ambitiously at India.
