“The last frontier” or “Just don’t bother”?
This is a long overdue post but the points made are, I think, still relevant.
Earlier this year, Richard Wallace, Mike Clendenin and Sufia Tippu writing in the EE Times about India’s potential to become a “silicon superpower” concluded that: “It’s a tall order. India has the brainpower to pull it off, but China won’t easily concede its lead.”
Some excerpts from the original article:
“…Can India, like China, become the next silicon success story? This seemingly simple question has given birth to a debate that’s roared across the global electronics industry since India unveiled broad new financial incentives designed to lure chip makers to the subcontinent last month.
Some call India “the last frontier for semiconductor manufacturing,” and believe it will it be a magnet for companies like TSMC, AMD and Intel, the U.S. semiconductor giant whose fab site decisions–like the recent one to manufacture in China–can turn the fate of an industry.
“No way,” insist other industry watchers, pointing to India’s infrastructure shortcomings and late start in the chip-manufacturing sweeps. As the title of a recent JP Morgan Report puts it, “India and semiconductors: It’s too late; just don’t bother.”
