By India’s semiconductor ambitions just got a clearer timeline. Union Electronics and IT Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, has laid out a clear plan. India will move from its current 40nm chip manufacturing capability to the advanced 7nm-to-3nm range within eight years. He shared the roadmap in a Substack post published on August 25, 2026. This marks one of the first times an Indian Cabinet minister has used the platform to explain policy directly to citizens.
From 40nm to 3nm: The Roadmap
India currently manufactures chips at the 40nm node, a mature technology used widely in automobiles, telecom equipment, and consumer electronics. Vaishnaw said the government now wants a clear strategy to push toward more advanced nodes. The eight-year target covers the 7nm-to-3nm range, the technology used in today’s flagship smartphones and high-performance computing.
This is not the first time the minister has cited this timeline. At the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier in 2026, Vaishnaw outlined a similar path. He cited 7nm by 2030 and 3nm by 2032, developed with industry partners including IBM. He noted that nearly 75% of global chip demand falls in the 28nm-to-90nm range, covering electric vehicles, defense systems, and railways. India’s strategy prioritizes mastering this segment first before chasing cutting-edge nodes.
Semicon 2.0: The Bigger Picture
The chip roadmap sits inside Semicon 2.0, the second phase of India’s semiconductor mission. The Union Cabinet approved this phase on July 15, 2026, with an outlay of roughly ₹1.27 lakh crore, close to $13.4 billion.
Semicon 2.0 spans six core pillars: chip design, semiconductor equipment and materials, fabrication plants, assembly and packaging, research and development, and talent creation. Vaishnaw has described this as an expansion beyond building fabs alone. Chip manufacturing needs between 150 and 500 specialized chemicals, gases, and materials, and India currently imports most of them. The new phase aims to build domestic capacity in this supply chain, not just in finished chips.
Talent and Design: India’s New Focus
Design is the piece Vaishnaw keeps returning to. He has said India captures relatively little value from chip design and intellectual property today, even as manufacturing activity grows. The government plans to train around 1 lakh semiconductor design engineers in the coming years. This work spans compute, memory, radio frequency, power, networking, and sensor chips.
Vaishnaw has compared the ambition to India’s earlier rise in IT services. The goal is a global hub for chip design specifically, not only chip assembly. Domestic value addition in smartphone manufacturing has already climbed to around 22-24%, up from near-negligible levels a few years ago. Most of that value still comes from assembly rather than design.
What’s Already Running
Behind the roadmap, some of this is already live. India has approved 12 semiconductor units under the first phase of Semicon India, with cumulative investment of about $20 billion over five years. Three units have entered commercial production this year: Micron on February 28, Kaynes on March 31, and CG Power on July 4.
These three are assembly and packaging facilities, not full wafer fabrication plants. India is separately developing two semiconductor fabs, which handle raw chip fabrication rather than assembly. Vaishnaw has also pointed to interest from companies outside the government’s Semicon program. Private players are betting more than $3 billion on India’s chip ecosystem.
The Bottom Line
An eight-year path from 40nm to 3nm is ambitious. Vaishnaw has been candid that India starts from behind after missing earlier opportunities in the sector. But the roadmap now has real numbers attached. A ₹1.27-lakh-crore program, three plants already shipping product, and a stated plan to build capacity across design, materials, and talent, not chips alone. Whether India hits 2032 or slips beyond it, policy is now firmly headed toward advanced semiconductor manufacturing, not just assembly.
