Welcome to this, the first blog on The India Circuit (which, as someone cleverly pointed out, can be shortened to “The IC”)! The India Circuit will be about the Indian Electronics System Design & Manufacturing (ESDM) ecosystem. Are you wondering why we started this blog? That too, when there are others on the Cadence website that are about semiconductors and electronics? The reason is that this is not just another blog about semiconductors. This blog, as the name suggests, talks about what’s happening in the semiconductor and electronics space in India. And there is a lot that’s happening in India right now on these fronts. Since 2014 when he came into power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced a number of wide-ranging initiatives with objectives as varied as increasing domestic manufacturing, boosting trade, financial inclusion, good governance, educating the girl child, skill development, building a digitally powered knowledge economy, inclusive growth and even promoting cleanliness. Many of these have had a significant impact on the electronics and semiconductor ecosystem in India, such as: ‘Make in India’ - as the name suggests, this is aimed at boosting Indian manufacturing to make the country a global manufacturing hub. ‘Digital India’ aims at transforming India into a digitally empowered society and a knowledge economy. Some of the many initiatives under the Digital India campaign include digitizing records; ‘Digi Locker’ to safely store documents such as driving license, Voter ID, education certificates and the like in the cloud; and, a national scholarship portal for the application, disbursement and tracking of all scholarships granted by the Government. The Smart Cities Mission, which is about inclusive development. According to the 2011 Census, while only 31% of India’s population lives in cities today, they contribute 63% of India’s GDP . Urban India could house 35% of India's population and contribute 70-75% of its GDP by 2020. To help manage this growth, the Government is developing 109 “smart cities” that will provide core infrastructure, a clean and sustainable environment and application of ‘smart’ solutions - Internet of Things (IoT) enabled sensors, cloud computing, virtualisation and machine to machine (M2M) integration, among others. The National Policy on Electronics—announced in 2011, this policy outlined a comprehensive roadmap, covering incubation centers, an Electronics Development Fund, manpower and skill development initiatives. The Policy aims at addressing the huge domestic demand for electronics, much of which is being satisfied today through imports. The idea is to bring electronics manufacturing into the country and save foreign exchange spent on imports, tying in with the ‘Make in India’ campaign. In terms of market size, the India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA), the trade body that represents the ESDM ecosystem, in a report released earlier this year has estimated that the ESDM sector in India will reach $228 billion by 2020 from $100 billion today . What is driving this growth? Let’s take the mobile phone as an example of just one of the drivers. Earlier this year India passed the one billion mark of mobile subscribers. In a country of 1.3 billion people, this is a big number, especially since many of those subscribers never had access to a landline phone. So, many people went from having no phone to having a mobile phone, especially in rural areas. The mobile revolution has changed the lives and livelihoods of people across the socio-economic spectrum, and it has also heralded a big cultural change. The use of mobile wallets and payment gateways is an example. According to this article , the number of transactions and the transaction value of Paytm, the most popular mobile wallet used in India, shot up by 250% just after the Modi government de-monetized Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in November 2016. Everyone from local fruit vendors to autorickshaw drivers were using mobile payment gateways to do business. Earlier, cash was the most popular way to pay for small purchases. As I said, mobile is just one of the growth drivers. Increasing use of electronics in automotive, industrial applications, telecom, medical, and entertainment applications obviously have a direct impact on electronics, and that’s where this blog comes in. The blog posts here will take a look at what’s happening in India through the lens of ESDM. Some of the blogs will be reportage of industry events, some will be technology-related, some will discuss industry trends and challenges. All of them will have an India angle. If you have an interest, big or small, in India’s ESDM ecosystem, stay tuned!![]()
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