‘Govt allocates Rs 4,500 crore to upgrade state-run SCL’

Mohali: The government plans to invest Rs 4,500 crore to modernise state-owned chip company Semi-Conductor Laboratory (SCL) over the next three years, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Friday.

Semi-Conductor Laboratory (SCL), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), is the only integrated device manufacturing facility in the country providing end-to-end solutions for the development of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), opto-electronics devices, and Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS) devices.

The minister said that the centre has requested the Punjab government for a 25-acre parcel of land to support the expansion. “SCL will be modernised with an investment of Rs 4,500 crore over a period of the next three years,” Vaishnaw said at the device handling ceremony here.

The investment in SCL is part of Rs 76,000 crore India Semiconductor Mission fund. SCL has already floated a tender to select vendors for the plant’s modernisation.

The minister at the event handed over 28 chips to various institutions and start-ups that designed it which were fabricated and packaged by SCL in 180 nanometer node.

The Mohali-based plant has received a total of 94 designs under the government chips-to-startup program and two designs through its independent collaboration with Dhirubhai Ambani Institute and Vellore Institute of Technology.

Vaishnaw said SCL will play a significant role in realising the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for semiconductors and assured that there is no question of privatising the facility.

The minister said production at SCL needs to be increased 100 times. “There is a need to bring substantial change in technology. We need to take a big jump over decades-old technology that we have here. SCL Mohali will provide a ‘tape out facility’ for startups,” the minister said.

A “tape out facility” refers to a semiconductor fabrication plant wherein a final chip design is sent to the manufacturing unit after completion of the design phase.

He said that 300 university students, undergraduate, research fellows are using the world’s latest EDA tools for chip design in the country and SCL will play a significant role in the production of those chips.

EDA tools, or Electronic Design Automation tools, are software used to design electronic systems such as integrated circuits (ICs) and printed circuit boards (PCBs).

“We need to expand SCL Mohali. We have requested the Punjab government to allocate 25 acres of land. The faster you allocate the land, the faster it will help in the expansion of SCL Mohali,” Vaishnaw said.