A Celebration of India's Electronic Component Manufacturing Scheme milestones: Pairing policy incentives with turbulent Innovation

17 Nov 2025

After the incredible success of semicon India this September, India cellular and electronics association organised a lunch celebrating the success of Electronic components and manufacturing scheme at the Taj in New Delhi.

Minister for Electronics & IT Ashwini Vaishnaw, was joined by Minister of State for Electronics & IT Jitin Prasad , Secretary S Krishnan, Secretary Sushil Pal and various industry leaders who are helping to build a semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem in India.

It was a unique opportunity for me to observe the collective decision making that goes into developing policies shaping the industry. Through exchange of ideas the policy makers have mapped in great detail the components that need to be in place for the initiative to succeed. The list was quite comprehensive including PCBs, oscillators, lithography,packaging,crystal manufacturing covering both frontend and backend along with components.

Industry players targeting different segments —display, communication ,computing have complex dependencies and interlinkages so it will be a challenge to address their needs. On a policy level incentives are trying to address this by assuring businesses that their investment is protected. Yet risks remain in terms of competition both from local and global players.

If the mission does succeed the best result that could be obtained is a competition at a global scale, in an industry that is deeply entrenched. This is where the problem lies. The semiconductor industry has become so big that it's now impossible for small scale businesses to participate.

Policy makers have no alternative but to catch up. But what can small/independent businesses do?

The answer lies in a completely unrelated segment. CVD methods pioneered by the electronics industry are now being exploited by jewelers to grow synthetic diamonds which could in turn play an important role in future electronics. Related to diamond is another gemstone ,Mossainaite aka Silicon Carbide, that is already extremely important in the power industry and in the LED industry and is much cheaper than diamond to produce,presenting another opportunity for small businesses to look at.

Diamond-like carbon materials have opened up a new class of carbon based semiconductors that could have immense potential in heterojunction electronics and are already valuable as coatings.

The barrier to entry for electronics is too high for small business but in energy applications it's not insurmountable. It's important to discover and build materials that are versatile, and can be applied across industries to help it sustain the research phase until precision,engineering and control around it are developed.

Opportunities multiply as they are seized.

Silicon valley was started in a lab later funded by visionary venture capitalists who had an appetite for risk. The solid state transistor was once an upstart competing against vacuum tubes. Today it is difficult to imagine if anything can even compete with let alone replace the silicon transistor.

Those who have profited from the success of semiconductors would certainly want to maintain their position by singing the virtues of Moore's law. The truth however is open for all to see. Moore's law has created an industry that is heavily concentrated ,closed and jealously guarded . The majority of businesses in the developing world play a minor ,vanishingly small role in the industry. Tech transfers are not going to be easy and it becomes important to actively pursue new discoveries.

Advancements in plasma technologies, development of carbon based materials that are versatile and have applications across domains are key to achieving this vision.

The current policy is targeting development through diffusion. But diffusion is slow. It needs to be strengthened with turbulent market shaping activities led by companies that have low inertia and can accelerate at a high pace. Just like Silicon valley did when it consisted of just a couple of startups in a dry Californian desert.

Today the policy aims to make the nation competitive. However markets are not won by beating the completion but by making it irrelevant.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please don't hesitate to get in touch with me.

Akshat Jiwan Sharma

Strategy Consultant--Innovation/ Materials science/International relations/Telecommunications/Digital Transformation/Partnerships

Mobile/whatsapp:+919654119771

email:getellobed@gmail.com

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Akshat Jiwan Sharma

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