The Indian government recently wished a "important milestone" in its semiconductor industry, symbolizing the ambition of becoming a global competitor. However, foreign media The Register pointed out that the celebration event seemed too ea...
The Indian government recently wished a "important milestone" in its semiconductor industry, symbolizing the ambition of becoming a global competitor. However, foreign media The Register pointed out that the celebration event seemed too early because there was no special place for the chips at the exhibition.
At the Semicon India 2025 meeting, Indian IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw handed over a processor "Vikram 3201" developed and manufactured in India to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Vikram 3201 chip was developed by the Indian Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL), which has a cooperative relationship with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), so the processor has been successfully used in space missions many times. Modi and Vaishnaw said at the meeting that the chip's success shows that Indian semiconductor industry is ready to fly.
However, according to a specification document, Vikram 3201 cannot really let Indian semiconductor industry fly quickly because its frequency is 100 MHz, 32-bit, using 180-nanometer CMOS process and a dedicated instruction set. Such specifications are still difficult to attract overseas buyers, and they cannot demonstrate advanced manufacturing capabilities or large-scale production capabilities.
In addition, Modi and Vaishnaw seem to have not told their participants. The ISRO and SCL experiment room successfully launched the chip six months ago, and did not mention that India has independently developed a RISC-V architecture processor.
Vaishnaw also mentioned that India's policy has attracted many major semiconductor manufacturers to enter, and the 12-inch wafer round factory jointly operated by R&D and Tata in India will be launched in 2026, becoming India's first large-scale wafer round manufacturing factory. However, this factory and other factories under construction are high-profit products that produce relatively simple silicon wafers rather than drive AI systems and servers.
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