India entered chipmaking early: SCL in Mohali began 5-micron production in 1984. A fire on 7 February 1989 halted it until 1997, and fab plans in 2014 and 2022…
The Union Cabinet approved Semiconductor Complex Limited, a government chip maker at Mohali meant to design, fabricate and test chips in India.
With technology from American Microsystems, SCL began commercial 5-micron CMOS production, three years before TSMC was founded.
TI's Bangalore centre was among the first multinational R&D centres in India, the start of a chip-design base that now holds nearly 20% of the world's design workforce.
A fire destroyed SCL's main production line. The cause has never been settled. Production did not restart until 1997.
SCL resumed production eight years later, but the world had moved on. In 2005-06 it became the Semi-Conductor Laboratory under the Department of Space.
The Cabinet approved a ₹34,399 crore Jaiprakash-IBM-Tower fab in UP and a ₹29,013 crore HSMC-STMicro-Silterra fab in Gujarat.
Jaiprakash had withdrawn; HSMC could not submit required documents and its Letter of Intent was cancelled.
After the global shortage, the Cabinet approved the Semicon India Programme and set up the India Semiconductor Mission, with up to 50% support.
Micron's assembly and test plant became the first ISM project. A month later Foxconn quit its Vedanta chip venture, a reminder of how fragile deals were.
Tata Electronics and Taiwan's PSMC got approval for India's first commercial silicon fab, about ₹91,000 crore, plus Tata Assam and CG Semi packaging plants.
Micron's Sanand plant began commercial production and shipped the first made-in-India memory modules. It packages and tests; it does not fabricate wafers.
A ₹1,27,500 crore programme on six pillars: design, machines and materials, more fabs, packaging, R&D and talent.
CDIL in Mohali and Suchi Semicon in Surat joined Micron, Kaynes and CG Semi: five of 12 approved units producing. All are packaging plants; the fab is still ahead.
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