India's Semiconductor Mission Approves Three Chip Design Centres in Bengaluru

Three Chip Design Centres Approved Under DLI Scheme

The India Semiconductor Mission has approved Design Linked Incentive grants for three new semiconductor design centres to be established in Bengaluru's electronics cluster over the next 18 months. The approvals, announced by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, mark the eighth, ninth, and tenth design centres funded under the DLI scheme since its launch as part of India's broader semiconductor ecosystem development initiative.

The three approved centres address distinct but strategically relevant segments of the global chip design landscape. The first, to be established by a consortium of IISc researchers and a Bengaluru-based deep-tech startup, will focus on designing processors based on the open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture, targeting embedded applications in industrial IoT devices, edge computing modules, and India's next-generation digital public infrastructure components.

RF and Automotive Focus

The second centre, a joint venture between an established Indian defence electronics company and a Taiwanese radio frequency design firm, will develop RF semiconductor IPs for applications in 5G small cell infrastructure, military communications equipment, and satellite ground terminals. The RF semiconductor segment is one where India currently has near-zero domestic design capability despite being one of the world's largest consumers of such components through its mobile and defence hardware markets.

The third centre is the most commercially differentiated: a standalone entity backed by a consortium of automotive original equipment manufacturers and Tier-1 suppliers will focus on designing automotive-grade integrated circuits meeting the AEC-Q100 reliability standard. The automotive chip shortage of 2021-22 exposed India's complete dependence on imported automotive semiconductors, and the new centre directly addresses this vulnerability for the Indian automotive sector, which is the third-largest in the world by volume.

Talent Pipeline and Incentive Structure

The DLI scheme provides financial support of up to 50 per cent of eligible expenditure for approved design centres over a five-year period, capped at ₹15 crore for product design projects and ₹30 crore for chip design projects that reach tape-out stage. All three centres have committed to hiring a minimum of 100 engineers within two years, contributing to the Semiconductor Mission's goal of developing 85,000 trained semiconductor engineers in India by 2030.

Industry analysts have noted that while chip design activity is growing quickly in India, the path from design centre excellence to a full-scale fabrication ecosystem remains long and capital-intensive. The government's stated intent to attract at least three fabrication facilities — or fabs — to India under a separate incentive structure remains in advanced negotiations with two potential investors, including one global consortium.