|Over the years, India has continuously introduced various policies to support its chip industry, but it has repeatedly hit a wall. Although India has many advantages, it still needs to be accumulated for a long time to fundamentally solve the shortcomings in the independent research and development and manufacturing of chips. It remains to be seen whether cooperation with Israeli companies can become a key step for India's chip industry to take off.
The Israeli company that cooperates with India is Hightower Semiconductor. In fact, the cooperation between Tower Semiconductor and India can be said to be a surprise. Earlier this year, Hightower Semiconductor was still in in-depth contact with Intel, a leading chip company, and both sides hope to achieve technological breakthroughs through cooperation.
Intel is eager to develop industry-leading 2nm process chips, while Tower Semiconductor also has ambitions to enter the world's top 10 in the foundry field and at the same time receive the transmission of Intel's advanced technology.
For a time, the vision of cooperation was good, and the outside world generally expected that Intel would acquire Hightower Semiconductor. The stock price of Tower Semiconductor has soared wildly under the rumors of mergers and acquisitions. However, Intel did not obtain regulatory approval within the deadline, and in the end, the dream of cooperation between the two parties was shattered.
Surprisingly, after negotiations with Intel collapsed, Tower Semiconductor immediately announced that it would invest $8 billion to build a chip factory in India. India** has also warmly welcomed the offer, even offering up to $4 billion in subsidies to support the cooperation.
For Tower Semiconductor, the choice to cooperate with India is also due to various considerations. First of all, building a factory in India can reduce the competitive pressure in the same industry. There are no chip companies with strong production capacity like TSMC and Samsung in India, which makes Tower Semiconductor have a lot of opponents. Secondly, India's abundant labor resources and relatively low labor costs can also significantly reduce the cost of the tower's operation.
In addition, India also lacks sufficient talent pool in chip manufacturing. Although India's software service outsourcing industry is a world leader, there is a serious shortage of skilled personnel required for different parts of the chip industry. There are also shortcomings in hardware conditions such as energy and infrastructure, which also make it difficult for India's chip industry to rise rapidly.
But a factory fire destroyed the development blueprint. In the decades since, although India has continued to try to support domestic chip companies and try to rebuild the chip industry, it has suffered repeated setbacks. In recent years, India has made great efforts to achieve independent research and development of chips within two years, but the results have caused an uproar in the outside world. According to India's National Cattle Council, the chip they developed is implanted with cow dung, which can not only protect against radiation, but also protect against the new crown. As soon as this absurd news came out, the whole world was ridiculing India's "chip dream".
It remains to be seen whether this cooperation with Israeli companies can be the last straw that breaks the camel's back and allows India to transform itself from a chip powerhouse. But no matter what the result is, India should not give up lightly, only by persistently improving the chip industry policy and accumulating technical strength, can we gradually move towards the goal of becoming a chip power.