Policymakers’ push for semiconductor manufacturing and chip design talent base has led to more chip industry GCCs (global capability centres) setting up shops in India.
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For the first time, the semiconductor sector accounted for about 30 per cent of the new GCCs established in India in the October-December 2023 quarter, analysis of GCCs by Nasscom and Zinnov showed. Three out of the ten new GCCs established in India in the quarter belong to the semiconductor sector.
R&D and IP solutions
These are M31 Technology in Bengaluru, SignatureIP in Bhubaneswar, and Edge Cortix in Hyderabad. While the centres start with smaller teams, they are set to be involved in key R&D, foundation IP solutions, and Edge AI hardware and software work. In the current quarter (January-March 2024), Qualcomm, which is already present in India, also set up a new design centre in Chennai.
Vijaykumar Hegde, partner of consulting firm Zinnov, said that the semiconductor GCCs are transforming their Indian centers into hubs managing entire chip development cycle and the coming years will more new GCC and expansion action. “Earlier, global chip companies leveraged India for design and system integration. But now with increased push in semiconductor manufacturing, we see India GCCs support activities around fabrication, testing, and quality assurance,” he added.
India has over 55 semiconductor GCCs, with roughly 74 per cent of them being headquartered in the US. Intel, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Micron, NXP, and others are among the earliest to set up their India centres. Bengaluru (42%) and Hyderabad (23%) collectively account for two-thirds of the total semiconductor GCCs in India with NCR in third spot housing 12 per cent of the country’s semiconductor GCCs.
GCC headcount
The Nasscom-Zinnov study estimates the total semiconductor GCCs headcount in India to be around 50,000 as of FY23. ASIC Design Engineer, IP Core Developer, and System-on-Chip (SoC) Architect are among some key roles for India talent in these GCCs.
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The chip GCCs are actively collaborating with academic institutions in India to develop a skilled workforce and enhance curriculum. IIT-Bombay, IIT-Madras and IISC Bengaluru are among top institutions that have research partnerships with Intel, Texas Instruments, and AMD respectively.