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TRB Rajaa, TN Industry Minister and V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras at a press conference in Chennai to announce the launch of a Centre for Advanced Semiconductor Technologies, at IIT Madras
| Photo Credit:
BIJOY GHOSH
The Tamil Nadu State government has announced plans to launch a Centre for Advanced Semiconductor Technologies, which will include a semiconductor fab processing facility.
In an event here on Friday, Tamil Nadu Industries Minister TRB Rajaa announced that the State government will support the initiative with a seed grant of ₹100 crore. “In the past, we lost fab to other States. However, with this initiative, we hope, we will be able to attract fab manufacturing to the south, which needs such a unit,” he said.
The initiative is part of the larger Tamil Nadu Semiconductor Mission 2030, outlined in the State Budget for 2025-2026. As part of the Mission, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu had earlier announced a ‘Semiconductor Fabless Lab’ established in Chennai at an estimated cost of ₹100 crore in collaboration with leading industry and academic institutions.
Overall, the the government plans to allocate ₹500 crore towards the semiconductor industry over the next five years
The Central Polytechnic Campus in Chennai will host the proposed centre, which aims to train over 4,500 candidates. The curriculum will involve specialised modules over a 2-6 week period focusing on transnational research with practical application in priority sectors like electric vehicles, data centres, and space technology.
The facility, which will be set up in partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, will include a small-scale, production-grade fab to jump-start local capability, drive advanced research, and support continuous skilling.
“With this initiative, our focus is on developing human capital in this sector and building a globally competitive semiconductor workforce in Tamil Nadu. Our vision is to make Tamil Nadu the singular, indispensable source of highly skilled talent required for the booming semiconductor industry across the nation and the world,” Rajaa said, speaking on the initiative.
IIT Madras Director V Kamakoti said, “We need people who understand the entire process end-to-end of the fab process and we want to develop through this effort. This is not just a training fab. This will also be prototyping fab where we can actually do some chips. Anybody who is going to graduate out of this lab would have an experience of doing a chip end-to-end…We will also find out some customers who will take these chips from us.”
One of the biggest concentrations in the lab would be to develop indigenous tool flow. The tools cost in millions and the many start-up companies could not grow in semiconductor because of the non-availability of these CADD tools.
“We will now form a big consortium, which will start working on indigenous CADD flow that will also be part and that will be trained and tested in this lab, Kamakoti said.
Published on August 1, 2025
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