The Hindu Business Line : Plug the gaps

At a time when India’s attempts to establish itself as a global semiconductor manufacturing base are promising to open the floodgates of investments, by companies such as Reliance Industries Ltd and Videocon, the latest report by the India Se miconductor Association (ISA) throws light on the state of semiconductor-related research across Indian Universities.

The report points out that while India — backed by the presence of premier technical institutes and a large pool of quality talent — offers significant potential as an R&D base for the semiconductor industry, the potential in Indian institutes has not yet been fully tapped due to bottlenecks faced by the academia.

“With the Government announcing the new semiconductor policy, there is also a strong emphasis on creating a conducive R&D environment in the country. In line with this, the semiconductor policy too talks about certain incentives for R&D. Given our R&D capabilities and institutes of excellence, we now need to look at research in a big way,” says M Madhavan Nambiar, Special Secretary, Department of IT (DIT).

At present, close to 70-75 per cent of the semiconductor research activities in technical institutes in India is concentrated in the top seven institutes — the IISc (Bangalore), the five IITs in Chennai, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, and Mumbai, and the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani.

“It is true that semiconductor research activities in Universities are currently skewed in favour of top-tier institutes. Both Government and industry need to do much more to broad-base this in order to reach out to other institutes, as well. One way to do that is for the industry to go for local linkages, which entails tie-ups with institutes that are located closest to them,” says D Balakrishnan, COO of SPEL Semiconductor Ltd, India’s first semiconductor IC assembly and test facility.

Research focus areas

At present, chip design and testing accounts for about 43 per cent of the total research activities undertaken in Indian institutes. About 78 per cent of these projects are related to chip design, and 22 per cent to testing and verification.

“Almost 47 per cent of the projects are in the analogue space,” says Poornima Shenoy, President of ISA.

As the ISA report points out, fabrication facilities are not available at Indian institutes and there appears to be a lack of awareness about the possibility of collaboration with the industry.

In such cases, the developed design has to be sent abroad for fabrication, thus multiplying the overhead costs substantially. To address the problem, the national nanotech fabrication facilities have been set up at IISc Bangalore and IIT Mumbai, and are also proposed to be set up at IITs in Kharagpur and Delhi.

Embedded systems have emerged as the second largest field for research in Indian institutes, accounting for 17 per cent of the total semiconductor-related projects undertaken in the country (primarily due to lower availability of faculty in this field in India).

Among other fields, process-related research accounts for 16 per cent of the overall projects, while Electronic Design Automation accounts for about 13 per cent of the research conducted in Indian institutes.

Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) and sensors have emerged as an upcoming field of research, accounting for close to 10 per cent of the research conducted.

However, only a few centres are into this. IIT Mumbai is focusing on fabrication and design of sensors while IISc Bangalore and IIT Kharagpur are concentrating on developing MEMS chips.

Industry role in funding

While Government contributes a whopping 80-85 per cent of the funding in semiconductor research, the balance is provided by the industry players, mostly in the form of donations or sponsorship of EDA tools.

“It’s great that the 85 per cent of the funding is coming from the Government. On the other hand, we need the knowledge of industry to channelise that funding. Global organisations can bring to the table best known methods and practices from across the world,” points out Rahul Bedi, Director, Corporate Affairs, Intel South Asia and India Business Operations Manager, Intel India.

Institutes up against roadblocks

As stressed by the ISA report, the research potential in India has not been fully realised due to challenges faced by technical institutes, including scarce supply of research scholars and faculty; limited industry support; and lack of research infrastructure.

“There is limited awareness about the importance of semiconductor research and recognition by the Government. Moreover, owing to the absence of advanced facilities for fabrication, testing and verification, projects do not get completed or get delayed,” says the report.

Compounding the crisis is the shortage of research scholars in the field of semiconductors. Historically, only about 5 per cent of the M Tech students enrol for a Ph.D degree — only 35 Ph.Ds were awarded in the semiconductor space during 2002-2005. In addition, the student-to-faculty ratio in Indian institutes is 12:1 which is considerably lower than the level of 9:1 prescribed by the Government. This is primarily owing to the lower remuneration in academia compared to the industry, and inclination of students to study abroad.

“A person coming out of college would rather opt for a job that pays more, than get into teaching. Breaking this cycle is a huge challenge,” says Intel’s Bedi.

Agrees Poornima Shenoy of ISA. “It is critical to get prestige back into research and academics. The pipeline for faculty is currently weak, and given the unlimited career opportunities available today, teaching as a career option has slipped to the bottom of the ladder,” she says. The industry, on its part, also needs to step forward and support the initiatives, not only through tools but also in the form of endowment of chairs to educational institutes to support research, she adds.

Another problem is that the industry tends to support Class A institutes that offer a better return on investment than Class B and Class C institutes. Currently the industry support is limited to institutes that have the requisite in-house abilities to sustain effective research and development.

“However, one must bear in mind that semiconductor manufacturing is just taking off in India. As manufacturing and ATMP (assembly, testing, marking and packaging services) activities kick-in in a big way, the industry participation too will go up significantly across a larger breadth of institutes,” says Balakrishnan of SPEL.

Industry wish-list

The ISA study has mooted a public-private-partnership model to develop a conducive environment for semiconductor R&D in India. “Government should play a pivotal role in encouraging research activities by providing funds for establishing infrastructure and execution of research projects. The industry can provide technical expertise and funds for lab equipment. Such collaboration will facilitate the development of scholars, faculty and infrastructure in institutes,” it says.

It has also suggested a four-pronged approach to enhance the research infrastructure in the country: developing dedicated research centres; aligning semiconductor labs at various institutes with industry standards; setting up semiconductor research-focused institutes; and establishing semiconductor-related R&D SEZs.

With regard to improving the status of faculty and research scholars, the industry has recommended creating awareness about job avenues for Ph.D holders. “In addition, Class A institutes can provide guidance to Class B and C institutes by extending support in research fields such as process related, MEMS and sensors that are currently limited to Class A institutes,” it says.

moumita@thehindu.co.in

More Stories on : Hardware | Research & Development

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Plug the gaps

No getting away

Fun way to holiday

Patient acceptance

Flourish your mobile, not card

Action inside

Quiz

IT helps align messages books2byte

Cartoon