Semiconductor Industry in India: Development, Career Opportunities

Governments around the world have increased their chip investments. To promote and support domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research, the US government passed the critical CHIPS Act investments totaling 52 billion dollars. 

Recently, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), Government of India announced an investment of a whopping $10 billion to support semiconductor R&D in India, along with the capital and incentives to manufacturing as well as the DLI scheme for the Fabless startups to develop products both for domestic and global markets.

Recent Developments in the Semiconductor Industry in India

In the last few years, India has made tremendous progress in the semiconductor Industry. Every top semiconductor company in the world has a design center in India. Our country has around 120,000 chip design engineers, comprising about 20% of the world’s chip design workforce. As a hub for semiconductor design India designs nearly 2000 chips every year, with more than 20000 engineers working in various aspects of chip design and verification. 

To meet the global shortage and supply issues with semiconductors, the government has implemented several actions to be well-equipped to meet the demand for chips. 

The Indian government has tweaked the incentive of Rs. 76,000 crores under the Production-linked Incentive (PLI) plan for producing semiconductors and displays. The new policy offers 50% of the project cost across all categories to pursue global players. The plan will not only deliver semiconductor companies much-needed financial support but will also generate thousands of indirect and specialized job opportunities.

The government revealed a “Semicon India program” to assist in resolving the global chip problem. The program encourages manufacturers to construct their semiconductor industry setups. 

In addition to these developments, several promising funds are coming in from some of India’s leading industrial giants. Some of them are- 

• Vedanta group’s announcement of investing 1.54 lakh crore for setting up semiconductor and display manufacturing units in Gujarat along with Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn, IGSS Ventures, and Abu Dhabi-based Next Orbit Venture’s ISMC
• The Tata Group intends to invest US$90 billion (about Rs7,452 billion) in the semiconductor industry across the group companies over the next five years. It plans to foray into advanced chip manufacturing, popularly known as fabs, in a few years.

According to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Indian semiconductor market will reach $63 billion by 2026, which is four times its current size. Additionally, the demand for semiconductors may overtake the ceiling given the impending 5G rollout. India could have a large role to play in the semiconductor industry as the world’s fifth-largest economy looks to boost its domestic chip sector.

Career Prospects for Engineers in the Semiconductor Industry

The recent announcement of the $10 billion India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) by the government is a statement of intent to gain a foothold in the $533 billion semiconductor market.

India is focused on investing heavily in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, giving rise to the need for material science engineers, chemical engineers and applied physics. The semiconductor industry offers excellent salaries for engineers looking to work in core areas of semiconductor development. Some of the commonly demanding jobs in the industry are- 

• Design Engineer
• Verification engineer
• Testing engineer
• Application Engineer
• R&D engineer
• Product validation engineer

Workforce Challenges Faced by the Semiconductor Industry

Semiconductor recruitment is tough as it requires a workforce with specialized IT and engineering skills such as Communication & network experts, Chip & Circuit designers, Testing Engineers, Technology engineers, and developers.

Be it a small-scale semiconductor company or a major player in the industry, one of the biggest hurdles faced by the semiconductor industry is the lack of an adequate workforce with the necessary skills. 

What are the problems faced by semiconductor companies?

1. Acquisition

Semiconductor companies face persistent talent issues. While there has been an adequate talent flow in employees with digital and analytics skills, the semiconductor industry is still facing lower talent flows. Why is this happening? 60% of senior-level executives feel that semiconductors have poorer brand images than other tech-focused companies, while students are more consumer tech-oriented than their semiconductor peers

2. Weak retention

Compared with competitors in automotive and big tech, semiconductor players also fare badly on sentiment measures. The biggest gaps are in work-life balance and senior management, and there are challenges around compensation, benefits and culture, diversity, and inclusion.

3. Low organizational health

Organizational health encompasses how companies and their employees align with a common vision, execute against that vision, and renew themselves through innovation and creative thinking. Semiconductor players score less on these metrics.

What are the Opportunities for the Staffing Industry?

1. Specialized recruitment & staffing companies like Alp, that have the experience and expertise in handling the semiconductor hiring process efficiently provide clients with the necessary workforce comprising of technically sound engineers for better growth of the organization.

2. Faced with key areas of talent challenge, executives need to turn to staff providers who have their foothold in the industry and can attract and retain talent. Ranging from brand awareness to onboarding experience, career progression, and trust-based relationships, the right staffing provider will aid your organization’s growth. 

3. Staffing specialists engage with potential recruits, facilitate dialogue, and ensure that rewards match both individual skill sets and competitor metrics. These dimensions are crucial for companies in gauging their progress in the journey of an employee’s lifecycle and benchmarking their performance against the best practices. 

Benefits of partnering with the right staffing industry

Provision of an adjustable workforce

Provide your organization with talented tech professionals to meet a wide range of needs. The workforce can be downsized or upsized as required by the client depending on specific projects.

Quality network

As a staffing industry would have worked in the same lines and domain for a long time, they have access to a broad network and connections with strong reach to qualified professionals.

Cost-effective

Deploying a semiconductor recruitment expert, makes the cost of recruitment and onboarding negligible, compared to timely business goal achievement and flexibility to scale the workforce. 

Higher efficiency

Recruitment of skilled employees with the help of a business partner company saves the time and energy that needs to be spent on mission-critical tasks like R&D, and brand value creation. 

Initiatives to build talent pipelines are critical for the long-term success and sustainability of the semiconductor industry and our global economy. Retention must be integral to employers’ talent strategies, as there are only so many people with the necessary skills and industry knowledge to do these jobs effectively today. Alp has been one of the leading Business Partner Companies, serving renowned organizations for Semiconductor Industry Staffing Solutions for over 20 years with the necessary expertise and deep understanding of the semiconductor business processes to provide critical IT and engineering staffing services.