India Building GaN Tech Capability
Article By : PIB India
India's GEECI facility has been jointly set up by MeitY and IISc Bengaluru, aimed at establishing GaN-based Development Line Foundry facility, especially for RF and power applications.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, recently visited the Gallium Nitride Ecosystem Enabling Centre and Incubator (GEECI) facility at the prestigious Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc) in Bangalore. The facility has been jointly set up by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and IISc Bengaluru, aimed at establishing GaN-based Development Line Foundry facility, especially for RF and power applications, including strategic applications.
The Minister, after reviewing the progress of the project and after inspecting the facility, highlighted its importance. “The next two to three years offers a window of opportunity for Gallium Nitride (GaN) to play a key role in enabling e-vehicles and wireless communication,” he said. He also saw the GaN transistors fabricated in the IISc CeNSE fab.
Creating strategic capabilities in emerging technologies is one of the core objectives of the Digital India Program launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015. To achieve these objectives, the MeitY has drawn the MeiTY vision 1000 days, which includes HiTech/Strategic Tech as an important component. GaN technology is of strategic importance with its application to 5G, space, and defense application.
The Minister spoke about the recently experienced COVID-19-induced disruptions in the global supply chains and how the government, led by PM Modi, is committed to capitalize on this narrow window of opportunity that is presented to India—as the world is looking for a new and trusted supply chain partner.
“There is tremendous opportunity in the electronics manufacturing and in the field of electronics and semiconductor design,” said Chandrasekhar, as he mentioned about the recently announced $10 billion incentive package for setting up semiconductor fab units in India and to make India a global hub for electronics systems design and manufacturing (ESDM).
“Research, technology development, education and training in our institutes like IISc and IITs in the area of semiconductor manufacturing is essential to realize the dream of Digital India and fabs in the nation,” added Chandrasekhar.
The fab model in IISc will be a state of the art incubation to promote indigenous development of technology, and thereby encourage final deployment into cellular infrastructure, and strategic technologies.
Along with PLI and DLI schemes, GaN ecosystem will drive the innovation and encourage startups and entrepreneurs to look into business and technology seriously in next two years. AGNIT Semiconductors Pvt Ltd the first startup has already been incubated in TBI-InCeNSE an incubator of SID, IISc. It has raised its first round of angel funding. This will be the first startup to leverage the infrastructure created by GEECI.