Amid all the turmoil around, ideally the country wants independence and self-sufficiency. But this is impossible in this globalized world. Any country can produce everything it needs and maintain strong growth. Therefore, to make a country strategically important and cover its strategic leverage, it is important to be a key part of the global supply chain so that global powers cannot ignore you or take you on a car so that a country can use this power to do it fairly at the negotiating table.
For example, although Taiwan is a small country and may think it may not have a lot of leverage, Taiwan does have a lot of leverage. Taiwan produces more than 60% of the world’s semiconductors, until not long ago, this figure was close to 75% of the world’s semiconductors. But why do we discuss semiconductor chips and why are they important?
From washing machines to cars to AI technology to retail, almost everything you see requires semiconductor chips. Without semiconductor chips, the world would stagnate. Nearly 60% of the world’s high-end semiconductor chips produced in Taiwan, which is Taiwan’s leverage.
This is why it is important for all children, the bright thinking of the future, and understanding coding, computer science and semiconductors is important. Ultimately, it is inevitable that all experience converges when selling something or consuming something involving semiconductor technology in one way or another.
In the semiconductor manufacturing industry, India lags seriously. And, it’s trying to play now. The semiconductor industry needs a long-term vision. It initially requires a lot of investment and then will gain profits in the long run. For example, after the first manufacturing plant to produce quality chips was established, it would take four years to get out of the plant, but even then, the defect rate would be high in the first few years. When the output becomes better, it will only stabilize after the production is stable.
Another common problem in chip manufacturing is that the process is prone to errors. Despite all the automation and advanced facilities, chip manufacturing is a very easy process. Manufacturing involves all stages, including wafer manufacturing, assembly, packaging and final integrated circuit testing. The reduced size of semiconductor components enabled by modern extreme UV sources makes the semiconductor manufacturing process very susceptible to errors occurring in various lithography steps – mask alignment, photofilm patterning and etching.
However, India has not started from scratch. India already has a special advantage in the semiconductor industry, and that is the design. About 20% of the global workforce for designing semiconductor chips is located in India, working for various multinational chip companies. India lacks commercial-scale semiconductor manufacturing facilities. Tata is a leading company in India and ventured with its TATA-PSMC partnership and founded a 28nm chip manufacturing plant capable of producing 50,000 chips per month. Ultimately, India plans to enter more advanced 14nm and 12nm chip manufacturing.
Other parts of the semiconductor supply chain that India is studying are chip components and packaging. Chip assemblies and packaging are a labor-intensive process that India is ideally suited to capitalize on by providing cheap labor that drives value in the supply chain. India recently announced four new factories for assembly and packaging.
As a curriculum leadership institute in STEM, we provide children with simple understanding of chip manufacturing courses to enable children to develop understanding around semiconductors and a variety of semiconductor scales. To build interest around silicon chips and microcontrollers, we offer courses for various microcontrollers such as Arduino, Jetson, Microbit, and more.
Hope you find this useful, thank you.
You might want to read: How to teach your child to code?
