Bengaluru, February 26 Consumer product companies like Apple, Samsung, LG, and Cisco influence the dynamics of the semiconductor industry, and the absence of original product design firms in India poses a challenge for indigenous chip manufacturers, a top official of ASIP said on Thursday.
Speaking at the IESA Vision Summit 2026, ASIP (Advanced System in Package Technologies) Founder and CEO Venkata Simhadri shared his earlier experience when he approached smart electric meter manufacturers to obtain a chip from his past company, MosChip, which they introduced in their product. However, this could not happen because the finished product was designed overseas.
"We still don't have an ODM (original design maker). We still don't have a company like Samsung or LG that makes TVs or tablets. We still don't have a brand name in India that can control the chips that go to OSAT (Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test).
"All the capacity we are setting up, we are still dependent on multinational companies. All the companies we are going around the world and saying, please use my OSAT. We are dependent in the short term on the multinationals to fill up our capacity," Simhadri said.
He said that India currently has around 20 per cent of the chip design workforce, but most of them are employed by multinational companies and a few design services companies.
Simhadri said that the India Semiconductor Mission has created a good momentum in the country and appreciated the Design Linked Incentive scheme, adding that the funds provided by the government under the scheme are not enough to make next-generation chips.
He said that when he approached electric meter makers to replace chips made by Indian companies, the suppliers were unable to do so as they were not designing the product and were only assembling the imported parts of the meter.
Simhadri said that he set up a company, Powerics, to provide a platform for chips from his company.
He said that he obtained a reference design for Powerics GaN (Gallium Nitride) charger from overseas, but manufactured the entire product in India.
"We should focus more on developing product companies and fabless chip companies," Simhadri said.
Global chip majors like Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Mediatek are fabless companies, which means they only design their chips, and the product manufacturing is outsourced to fabrication companies, then to ATMP or OSAT units for making chips ready for use.
