Giving a message to students graduating from high schools and planning to take up engineering for graduation, minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Thursday urged students to not ignore electronics, semiconductor design and packaging and other streams of engineering.
The remarks come against the backdrop of Indian IT service companies hiring more talent based on coding.
Chandrasekhar, in an interaction with Jaya Jagadish, country head, SVP, silicon design engineering, AMD, India, at the Bengaluru Tech Summit, said, “When I enrolled for engineering, electronics was the most sought after. During the last decade, enrollment in electronics started dipping. But it picked up in the last two years.”
“I would tell students today, while coding and programming is a viable option, and I’m not saying that is a bad option, please explore electronics, electronic systems and design, semiconductor design and manufacturing, packaging. Even for students in physics, chemistry, and material science, these are all huge opportunities for growth.”
The minister emphasised that multiple breakout sectors like drone technology are “galloping” and that there is a “huge demand for electronics engineers and innovators of electronics” within these sectors.
He added, “Our PM’s goal in the next 3 – 4 years is to create 2,00,000 masters, PHDs, post doctoral talent that can be deployed in India for the Indian electronics and semiconductor innovation ecosystem, as well for the globe.”
Global semiconductor companies like AMD and others require engineers that are future ready. “Look at coding if you want, but don’t ignore electronics.”
India’s story and engagement with semiconductors has been a series of missed opportunities, he said. He illustrated how US-based semiconductor company Fairchild wanted to come to India in the 1960s. But because of unfriendly policies, it went to Malaysia. Similarly in mid-2010 Intel also was thwarted by red tape.
“In the last 18-24 months we have made tremendous progress in talent, design, packaging, and research. In terms of research, we are going to set up an India Semiconductor Research Centre very soon.”
“We are skipping a whole generation, and designing AI for the legacy world. We have made tremendous progress, in talent, manufacturing, packaging, and even down the road we will see one or two fabs coming up. In terms of becoming a global player, it is a given. The only question is about how fast,” he added.
Speaking about the competition between Bengaluru and Hyderabad, he said, the former has always been more conducive for the tech industry and there is actually no competition between the two.