Chips sit beneath the technologies people use every day: phones, vehicles, medical equipment, communication networks, and industrial controls. Building a dependable semiconductor industry is therefore a long-term capability project—not simply a construction project. India’s Semiconductor Mission (ISM) is the national effort to help develop that capability.
Market growth
Semiconductor sales are growing—but the cycle is uneven
Global semiconductor sales rose from $526.8 billion in 2023 to $630.5 billion in 2024, an increase of about 19.7%. The 2024 total reflects WSTS' updated year-end figure reported by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). This is a worldwide revenue measure, not a forecast for India.
Global semiconductor sales
Annual revenue, US$ billions
What the mission is designed to do
The Government of India established ISM under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to coordinate semiconductor and display manufacturing initiatives. The Semicon India Programme, announced in 2021 with a stated ₹76,000-crore outlay, provides a policy framework for supporting investment in key parts of the electronics and semiconductor supply chain.
The framework is broader than leading-edge silicon fabrication. It includes support mechanisms for semiconductor and display fabrication, compound semiconductors and related technologies, assembly and testing, and chip design. These activities have different economics and technical requirements, so they need complementary policies rather than a single one-size-fits-all approach.
Demand outlook
What is driving demand for semiconductors?
Demand is not one market. Different industries need different chip types, performance levels, manufacturing processes, and reliability profiles. The following map is illustrative, not a ranking or forecast.
AI and data centres
Accelerators, memory, networking, power management, and storage.
Automotive and mobility
Power electronics, sensing, safety systems, connectivity, and compute.
Phones and consumer devices
Processors, radio-frequency components, image sensors, and memory.
Industry and infrastructure
Control, communications, sensing, and energy-efficient electronics.
The semiconductor supply chain
A semiconductor product travels through many stages: architecture and circuit design, verification, fabrication, packaging, testing, and integration into an end product. Around those stages are essential suppliers of materials, manufacturing equipment, software tools, utilities, and specialist services. A strong ecosystem connects these capabilities so that ideas can reliably become qualified products.
For India, this creates more than one route to growth. Chip design and verification can build on the country’s engineering talent. Assembly, testing, and packaging can create manufacturing experience and connect domestic products to global supply chains. Over time, deeper supplier networks and process expertise can support increasingly complex manufacturing. Each step matters, even when it is not a wafer fab.
From idea to deployed product
A simplified view of connected stages and supporting inputs.
Design
Architecture, RTL, verification
Fabrication
Wafer processing
Assembly & test
Packaging, validation
Product systems
Devices and infrastructure
Economics
Big markets, different product economics
SIA reported 2024 global sales of $212.6B for logic and $165.1B for memory. The chart compares those two reported categories with the remaining $252.8B of the $630.5B total; that remainder is calculated, not a separately reported category.
2024 global sales by broad product group
Revenue, US$ billions; segments scaled to total sales
Capital intensity
Facilities, tools, and infrastructure require substantial upfront investment.
Yield and utilisation
Consistent quality and productive use of capacity shape unit economics.
Customer qualification
Long product lifecycles and reliability requirements make customer trust essential.
This is why incentives alone do not guarantee a viable project. Economics also depend on process capability, reliable infrastructure, a skilled workforce, supplier depth, and dependable demand for the output.
Why design and engineering talent matter
Incentives can help address the high cost and risk of semiconductor investment, but they cannot replace skilled teams and execution. Products still need engineers who can translate requirements into architecture, write and verify RTL, close timing, manage power, validate boards, and bring hardware and software together. Manufacturing also depends on process, equipment, quality, reliability, and test expertise.
This makes collaboration important. Companies, universities, research groups, training providers, and government programmes each contribute different parts of the talent pipeline. Practical projects, access to tools and labs, and experience with complete design flows help turn theoretical knowledge into the skills teams need on real products.
The hard work ahead
Semiconductor projects require large, sustained investment, reliable infrastructure, specialised supply chains, demanding quality systems, and long qualification cycles. Building a competitive ecosystem takes time. Financial support can improve project economics, but long-term success also depends on predictable execution, customer demand, experienced operators, supplier development, and continued investment in people.
Progress should therefore be judged by durable capability: teams that can deliver, facilities that can meet customer requirements, suppliers that can support production, and products that can compete on quality and reliability. The mission creates a framework for building these foundations; sustained industry and research collaboration will determine how deeply they take root.
A long-term opportunity
India’s Semiconductor Mission is an opportunity to connect the country’s engineering base with manufacturing, packaging, and product development. Its impact will not be measured by one announcement or one facility, but by the strength of the capabilities built across the full value chain. For engineers and technology companies, that means meaningful work at every layer: from designing a chip to integrating and validating the systems that use it.