Union Minister for Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw declared on Thursday, 17 September 2026, that India has successfully laid the foundation of its semiconductor industry and must now accelerate growth across the entire value chain. Speaking on the sidelines of SEMICON India 2026 in New Delhi, the minister outlined a six-pillar framework under Semicon 2.0 as the blueprint for the country's next phase of chip-industry expansion.

Six Pillars of Semicon 2.0

The government has formally notified all six pillars of the Semicon 2.0 scheme, which together cover the full semiconductor value chain. The pillars are: Design; Machines and Materials; Setting up more Fabs; Further strengthening the ATMP/OSAT industry; Research and Development; and Talent Development.

Vaishnaw emphasised a broad domestic ambition, saying, 'whether it is materials, machinery, additional new fabs, ATMP units, design, or talent development — the effort is to develop all of these within India.' The scheme provides fiscal and infrastructure support across every link in the chain, from chip design and fabrication to packaging, equipment, materials, and workforce creation.

Semicon 1.0: The Launchpad

Vaishnaw pointed to concrete early results from the predecessor programme. 'In Semicon 1.0, we had lots of startups trying to see how we can design the chips. We had a good success. More than 105 startups participated in it, and about 20 of them got VC funding of about ₹800 crore. That was just the beginning,' the minister said.

This context matters: Semicon 1.0 was the first structured attempt by India to seed a domestic chip-design ecosystem, and the venture-capital traction achieved by roughly one in five participating startups signals early commercial validation — a prerequisite for the far larger ambitions embedded in the 2.0 iteration.

Scale of SEMICON India 2026

The event itself reflected surging global interest in India as a semiconductor destination. IT Secretary S. Krishnan noted that the conference has grown sharply year on year. 'We have close to about 40,000 delegates registered. We have nearly 600-plus companies participating in the exhibition. We have delegates from about 52 countries participating, and more than 300 of these companies participating in the exhibition are overseas companies. This reflects the kind of confidence that the world has in India as a destination for semiconductor manufacturing,' Krishnan said.

Scheme Structure and Oversight

Projects supported under Semicon 2.0 will generally carry a duration of up to six years, while the scheme will remain open for applications for an initial period of three years. The India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) has been designated as the nodal agency and will handle application intake, technical and financial appraisal, applicant recommendation, and implementation oversight.

A mid-term assessment is mandated after three years of implementation, or earlier if required, to evaluate impact and consider modifications. This built-in review mechanism is a departure from earlier industrial schemes that lacked formal mid-course correction provisions.

What Comes Next

The formal notification of all six pillars marks a pivot from policy design to execution. Industry observers note that the real test will be how quickly fab and ATMP applications are processed and whether talent pipelines — perennially the bottleneck in deep-tech sectors — can be scaled fast enough to meet the demand that new fabs will generate. With global chipmakers reassessing supply-chain concentration in East Asia, India's window to attract anchor investments is arguably narrower than the six-year project horizon suggests.