IESA working on ambitious plan for creating 1,000 start-ups: Dr. Satya Gupta

The India Electronics & Semiconductors Association (IESA) has recently recommended the setting up a National Electronics Commission (NEC), on the lines of ISRO. It can bring all of the electronics- and semiconductor-related activities under one single umbrella. It has also suggested setting up a National Institute of Semiconductor & Electronics Research (NISER), on the lines of IMEC, Belgium.

Dr. Satya Gupta, IESA Chairman, tells us more.

DQ: What steps are you taking to boost ESDM manufacturing?

Dr. Satya Gupta: The IESA is continuously engaged with the government to bring out policies to create conducive fiscal and operations environment for ESDM manufacturing companies.

IESA’s approach towards electronics manufacturing is to create a level-playing field for all electronics products, rather than just mobile phones, and also promote domestic value addition in electronics manufacturing. Many of IESA initiatives are focusing on manufacturing for electronics products, ATMP and semiconductor products.

DQ: You are incubating about 100 start-ups. Can you give a breakup of verticals they represent?

Dr. Satya Gupta: The IESA is working on an ambitious plan for creating 1,000 start-ups under 1K-10K-100K program. This program will target 1K start-ups, 10K IPs and 100K crore of business value.

We envisage that out of 1,000 start-ups, there will be 900 start-ups for intelligent electronics products and 100 start-ups for fabless products. Although we are encouraging all verticals, some of the key focus areas will be medical electronics, agriculture, environment, electrical vehicles, urban and rural infrastructure, physical and cyber security.

The enabling technologies like AI/ML, 5G, cloud, edge computing, etc., will provide the backbone for innovative products in the above mentioned verticals.

DQ: How are you creating semicon and electronics technology and research institutes?

Dr. Satya Gupta: Although India's academic ecosystem is very strong, we feel that a dedicated and focused “National Institute for Semiconductor and Electronics Research” (NISER) will help in developing fundamental technologies in these emerging and fast-moving areas.

We have recommended the setting up a National Electronics Commission (NEC), on the lines of ISRO, and a National Institute of Semiconductor & Electronics Research (NISER), on the lines of IMEC, Belgium.

There are very successful models like IMEC, Belgium and IME Singapore, which have created breakthrough technologies and enabled local and global ecosystem to create innovative products. Such an institute will also help in strengthening the industry-academia collaboration.