Qualcomm on Saturday announced the successful tape-out of its 2-nanometre semiconductor chip design with development being done at its engineering centers in Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad. The milestone was attended by Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Railways, Information & Broadcasting, and Electronics & IT at Qualcomm’s Bengaluru facility and underlined India’s rapidly growing part in the global semiconductor ecosystem.
The firm said that its workforce in the country is one of the “most advanced and skilled development footprints globally,” while also being its biggest engineering talent pool outside the US.
“Milestones like this demonstrate how far India’s design ecosystem has come and align strongly with our vision of building a globally competitive semiconductor industry,” Vaishnaw said, talking about how the country had left behind its reputation as a global back office and was now involved in tape-out – the final step in chip design before it is sent to a fab.
2nm Milestone
The chips were all packed with between 20-30 billion transistors in a silicon wafer per die. This included both a GPU and a CPU within each chip. Vaishnaw pointed out that it can function in devices including desktops, cameras, routers, automobiles, trains and aircrafts.
“This achievement is a testament to the strength and depth of our engineering teams in India” said Srini Maddali, senior vice president, engineering, Qualcomm India.
Vaishnaw also how the country’s talent pipeline created under Semicon 1.0 had fully trained 67,000 engineers within four years that had contributed in designing and taping out the advanced chip. He added that the chip was showcased in Davos earlier this year where industry leaders expected India to fill in the estimated 1 million gap in semiconductor talent.
Semicon 2.0
He also referred to the policy proposals announced at the Union Budget which he believes will accelerate progress in India as the country drawns in more investments. “So far, $70 billion have been invested in data centres in India. I expect this to exceed $200 billion in the coming months,” he stated.
Additionally, Semicon 2.0, which will be rolled out in the upcoming months will prioritise chip design, equipment, materials, talent and eventually getting more fabs. The goal towards 7-nanometres from the current 28-nanometres has been laid out in “a multi-decade journey,” he noted.
Days ahead of the India AI Impact Summit, he also said that the country was scaling AI computing infra. “We have 38,000 GPUs so far as a part of common compute. Very soon we will be adding around 20,000 more,” he shared.
The Qualcomm Bengaluru campus serves as a key engineering center for development across nextgeneration wireless, AI, compute, and system-level technologies.