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My vision for India
Capital attracts projects. Execution builds industries.
India has done the hard political and financial work of attracting semiconductor projects. The next decade is decided on the floor: whether cleanrooms qualify on schedule, whether tools come up on time, whether there are enough people who can run a shift on day one, and whether a local supply chain shows up when a pump fails at 2 a.m.
The execution gap
A fab is not announced into existence. It is hooked up, qualified and released, one tool at a time.
I have watched six fab startups and three ATMP/OSAT programmes from the inside. The pattern is always the same: money and land are the beginning. What separates a facility that ramps from one that slips is a thousand unglamorous decisions about people, utilities, tools and vendors.
"The ballroom is empty until the last hookup is signed off."
Micron Fab10 taught me that a fab startup is a physical schedule. Every day of slip is a day of depreciation without wafers.
"A DPR is tested by concrete."
Leading the HCL–Foxconn ATMP/OSAT DPR taught me that every assumption in the report meets reality on site. The plan must be written by people who have stood on that site.
Five pillars of execution
What India must build alongside the fabs.
These are the pillars I work on, through PTW India, through the foundation, and in every advisory conversation with government and industry.
Technicians and engineers trained on real tools, with OJT, shift discipline and safety culture, not only degrees. A pipeline from polytechnics as much as from IITs.
Cleanroom, MEP and utility integration delivered with EPCM/PMCM discipline and an owner's engineer who knows what a tool actually needs at the point of connection.
Local teams who can install, hook up, qualify, sustain, relocate, refurbish and decommission semiconductor tools without waiting for an engineer to fly in.
Spares, sub-fab components, gas and chemical handling, precision fabrication and services built in India, so resilience is a fact and not a slide.
Government, academia, OEMs, EPC partners and industry associations working on one calendar. DPRs and RFPs written by practitioners, reviewed by practitioners.
In practice
What "execution" looks like on a Monday morning.
Abstractions do not build fabs. Here is what I push for in every project I advise, in the order the site will demand it.
- A DPR written by people who have done it
Capacity, utilities, tool lists, headcount and ramp curves grounded in a startup someone in the room has actually lived through.
- An owner's engineer on site from day one
Someone who represents the fab, not the contractor, at every hookup, every utility spec and every change order.
- A tool move-in calendar treated as sacred
Rigging windows, hookup crews, gas and power availability and qualification slots sequenced months ahead, and protected.
- Qualification discipline: FAT, SAT, LAT, release
No tool is "in" until it has passed its acceptance tests and a process owner has signed the release to production.
- A sustaining organisation before first wafer
PM schedules, spares, FDC/SPC and a trained shift structure in place before the ramp, not invented during it.
- A local bench that grows every quarter
Every install is a training opportunity. The vendor engineer leaves; the knowledge should not.
Where I work on it
Rooted in the south, engaged across India.
Based in Bengaluru, working with state and national ecosystem bodies, fabs, OSATs and OEM programmes across the country.
- KDEM, KarnatakaKarnataka Digital Economy Mission: ecosystem and workforce initiatives from my home base in Bengaluru.
- APEITA, Andhra PradeshAndhra Pradesh Electronics & IT Agency: manufacturing growth and capability building.
- TIDCO, Tamil NaduTamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation: the state where my journey began.
- IDSPS · iNEMIIndustry platforms for semiconductor supply chain and electronics manufacturing.
- Bharat Semiconductor Society · WOW India FoundationNon-profits incubating the ecosystem and its workforce; I mentor and chair.
- SCL Mohali and global OEM programmesServed as a client alongside AMAT, Lam, ASML, TEL, KLA, Intel and Micron.
Inclusion is capacity
A semiconductor workforce that leaves people out will be too small.
I have established and led workforce development programmes that deliberately open advanced manufacturing to specially-abled individuals. Precision, patience and process discipline are not limited to one kind of body. The fab floor should reflect that.
"India will not become a semiconductor nation because a fab was announced. It will become one when the second fab is built by the people who learned on the first."
Venkatesh Kumar Pandurengan