The semiconductor content used in India is driven by the increased adoption of mobile electronics or mobile phones and the increasing profusion of things like household appliances, audio-visual equipment, or automobile. As the country becomes more prosperous, and as more people are able to afford these kinds of devices, the consumption of semiconductor content is also increasing.

In recent times, an increasing portion of our day to day life is being digitised. Communication is almost entirely digitised now; things that we do in the homes are being increasingly digitised; automobiles, 2-wheelers & transportation mechanisms are being increasingly digitised. As a result, vast amounts of data are generated in India through IT & design services industry, and the storage of all that generated information is also being digitised. So the big question that most of us in India have is ‘Is that $52 billion dollars of semiconductor content going to be imported, or is some portion of that going to be manufactured within the country?’

In an exclusive interview with siliconindia, Krishnan Shrinivasan, Managing Director of Lam Research shares his insights about the current semiconductor industry in India, the emerging trends, and its impact on technology innovation.

How important is the role of Semiconductor industry in realising the Digital India initiative?

At the root of everything that is digital, there is a digital circuit that is implemented on a semiconductor device. The vast amount of digital data that is generated, both raw and processed, needs to be analysed, processed and stored. Increasingly storage devices are also moving away from spinning media such as hard disk drives to solid state media such as Flash. So in all three areas, semiconductor content will be vital; you don’t have a digital world without semiconductors.

Not many Indian startups are entering the semiconductor segment. What should the Government do to encourage startups to foray into the semiconductor space?

In some areas of the semiconductor industry, we are actually very advanced and global leaders. For example, in the design of semiconductors, or the VLSI process, all major players including Intel do their VLSI design in India. There is a great amount of sophistication involved at the design area. Where we are deficient is in manufacturing. The government needs to figure out a way to move forward in the manufacturing. The manufacturing ecosystem for semiconductors is very complex, so it is not very easy to setup a semiconductor manufacturing capability in India. We actually need to build an ecosystem around it.

Tell us About the Impact of Semiconductor in Developing IoT, SMAC, BigData & AI Technologies.

All these technologies require semiconductor content. Storage tends to be solid state now. There are two things that are required for wide-spread adoption of these technologies – capacity capability and cost. Our industry has been the best in the world of driving up capacity capability and orders of magnitude, while driving down cost by orders of magnitude, which is why people today can walk around with almost a computer in their hands in the form of smartphone. It also has the capacity to do all things that a mainframe computer can do. When you reduce cost and increase capacity capability, you actually enable widespread adoption of the semiconductor technologies in day-to-day living. For example, in your car today, the whole instrument cluster is digitised. It is now cheaper to have a new digital instrument cluster than an old analog cluster. This was driven by technology.

The manufacturing ecosystem for semiconductors is very complex, thus requiring an ecosystem to be built around the semiconductor manufacturing capability

With the Indian Government Coming-up with Smart Cities across the Nation, How Important is the Role of Indian Semiconductor Industry in Fulfilling this Initiative?

Enormous amount of data will be generated. The data will be then processed & analysed, and then it will drive decision making. Also, the infrastructure needed for these smart cities – be it telecom or internet infrastructure – will all have semiconductor content in them. For us, the smart city initiative is the best way to solve two problems – one is to relieve the current urban crowd in Indian cities; the second is to use technology to do this in a way that is efficient.

Automation of Processes in India

A large number of Governance processes are being automated. These days, there are a lot of initiatives to get most of the Government services through online process. B2B and supply chain relationships are all automated and done through the internet. The way companies increase efficiency through the use of computational power increases their ability to do business. Industrial setups and big plants are built in an automated fashion delivering high value. All these things could be enabled through semiconductors.

Role of Semiconductor in the Indian Healthcare Industry

The storage of information and digitisation of information; India is already a fairly large industry which actually does digitisation of healthcare records to people abroad, and also remote diagnostics using those records. That is one area where semiconductor and healthcare intercept. Second area in which the semiconductor has a play in healthcare is the upcoming area of wearable flexible electronics, where you can embed cheap sensors into people’s clothing or other wearables as a way to constantly monitor their health condition and to drive healthcare on a predictive basis.

Has Lam Research Partnered with Any of the Government Organisations or Private Entities in India?

We don’t sell directly to the Government; we sell to the semiconductor manufacturers. In the technical capacity, we have not partnered with the Government of India, but we are always willing to partner with the Indian Government to cipher the semiconductor ecosystem. But we do continue to partner with various local CSR activities where we interact with local governments.

Lastly, what is your Advice to Startups Foraying into the Semiconductor Segment in India?


Always figure out what is your competitive advantage that other companies in your segment do not possess and leverage it. Understand the critical aspect of what you are innovating and bring that into the market.