The Semi-Conductor Laboratory (SCL) in Punjab’s Mohali has successfully taped out 175 student-made chip designs at its 180 nm technology node, while 79 other chip designs created by Indian students have been taped out at overseas foundries.Sharing the information in Parliament, the government said India’s focused attention on semiconductor development has led to the training of over 68,000 students in chip designing and the successful tapeout of a total of 254 designs made by them — 175 at SCL Mohali and 79 at overseas foundries.Taping out a chip means completing the final design phase of an integrated circuit and sending the digital blueprint files to a manufacturing plant (foundry) to be made into physical silicon.Apart from this, 25 chip designs created by Indian startups and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have been successfully taped out across multiple foundries, including at advanced technology nodes such as 12 nm at the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the government informed Parliament.In simple terms, this means that 25 advanced semiconductor chips designed by Indian companies under the government’s promotion schemes have been successfully manufactured (taped out and fabricated) at advanced noded including at 12 nanometer processes by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.Sharing this information in the Lok Sabha in response to a question by Congress MP Manish Tewari, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Jitin Prasad said these 25 chips have been taped out under the government’s Design Linked Incentive scheme which seeks to supports startups and MSMEs in chip design area.Under the scheme, 24 projects from startups/MSMEs have been approved between mid-2023 to 2025 for financial support to develop semiconductor chips.The approved projects address critical sectors such as video surveillance, drone detection, energy metering, microprocessors, satellite communications, Light Emitting Diode (LED) drivers, broadband, and Internet of Things (IoT) System-on-Chips (SoCs).The government has informed Parliament that the beneficiary companies have collectively attracted venture capital (VC) investment amounting to more than four times the financial assistance disbursed under the DLI Scheme, reflecting strong confidence of industry and investors in the technological capabilities and commercial potential of these companies.“So far, 25 chip designs have been successfully taped out across multiple foundries, including at advanced technology nodes such as 12 nm at TSMC. Some of these designs have subsequently progressed to customer evaluation and qualification stages,” Prasad said.Answering Tewari’s queries on commercial deployment of chips, the government said the successful tapeout of 25 chip designs across multiple foundries, including at advanced technology nodes, together with the mobilization of venture capital investment exceeding four times the government’s financial assistance disbursed, demonstrates steady progress of DLI beneficiary companies towards commercialization.India is running two schemes for semiconductor promotion –the Chips to Startup (C2S) Programme and the Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme.The C2S Programme focuses on developing industry-ready talent and strengthening academic research capabilities.Under this plan, capacity-building projects have been supported at academic institutions in collaboration with startups, to foster research on industry-oriented problem statements and provide students with hands-on exposure to the end-to-end semiconductor chip design lifecycle.“This has resulted in the training of over 68,000 students, and the successful tapeout of 254 chip designs by students including 175 designs at the 180 nm technology node at SCL, Mohali, and 79 designs at overseas foundries,” Prasad said.He added that as per industry estimates, India accounts for about 20 per cent of the world’s semiconductor design engineers, with more than 1.25 lakh semiconductor design engineers working in the country.India also hosts about 7 per cent of the world’s semiconductor Global Capability Centres (GCCs), reflecting its growing importance in the global semiconductor design ecosystem.