Rao Tummala: Packaging Pioneer Advising India’s Chip Plans

In March, India introduced a significant funding to ascertain a semiconductor-manufacturing business. With US $15 billion in investments from corporations, state governments, and the central authorities, India now has plans for a number of chip-packaging crops and the nation’s first fashionable chip fab as half of a bigger effort to develop its electronics business.

However turning India right into a chipmaking powerhouse can even require a considerable funding in R&D. And so the Indian authorities turned to IEEE Fellow and retired Georgia Tech professor Rao Tummala, a pioneer of among the chip-packaging applied sciences which have develop into important to fashionable computer systems. Tummala spoke with IEEE Spectrum in the course of the IEEE Digital Part Expertise Convention in Denver, Colo., in Might.

Rao Tummala

Rao Tummala is a pioneer of semiconductor packaging and a longtime analysis chief at Georgia Tech.

What are you serving to the federal government of India to develop?

Rao Tummala: I’m serving to to develop the R&D facet of India’s semiconductor efforts. We picked 12 strategic analysis areas. For those who discover analysis in these areas, you can also make nearly any digital system. For every of these 12 areas, there’ll be one main middle of excellence. And that’ll be sometimes at an IIT (Indian Institute of Expertise) campus. Then there’ll be satellite tv for pc facilities hooked up to these all through India. So after we’re accomplished with it, in about 5 years, I anticipate to see most likely nearly all of the establishments concerned.

Why did you determine to spend your retirement doing this?

Tummala: It’s my giving again. India gave me the very best training attainable on the proper time.

I’ve been going to India and wanting to assist for 20 years. However I wasn’t profitable till the present authorities determined they’re going to make manufacturing and semiconductors essential for the nation. They requested themselves: What can be the necessity for semiconductors, in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years? They usually rapidly concluded that if in case you have 1.4 billion individuals, every consuming, say, $5,000 price of electronics annually, it requires billions and billions of {dollars}’ price of semiconductors.

“It’s my giving again. India gave me the very best training attainable on the proper time.” —Rao Tummala, advisor to the federal government of India

What benefits does India have within the international semiconductor house?

Tummala: India has the very best academic system on this planet for the lots. It produces the perfect college students in science and engineering on the undergrad stage and many them. India is already successful in design and software program. All the most important U.S. tech corporations have amenities in India. They usually go to India for 2 causes. It has lots of people with a whole lot of data within the design and software program areas, and people individuals are cheaper [to employ].

What are India’s weaknesses, and is the federal government response ample to overcoming them?

Tummala: India is clearly behind in semiconductor manufacturing. It’s behind in data and behind in infrastructure. Authorities doesn’t clear up these issues. All that the federal government does is about the insurance policies and provides the cash. This has given corporations incentives to come back to India, and due to this fact the semiconductor business is starting to flourish.

Will India ever have modern chip fabs?

Tummala: Completely. Not solely will it have modern fabs, however in about 20 years, it would have essentially the most complete system-level strategy of any nation, together with the US. In about 10 years, the dimensions of the electronics business in India will most likely have grown about 10 instances.

This text seems within the August 2024 print situation as “5 Questions for Rao Tummala.”

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