Rao Tummala: Packaging Pioneer Advising India’s Chip Plans

In March, India announced a major investment to establish a semiconductor-manufacturing industry. With US $15 billion in investments from companies, state governments, and the central government, India now has plans for several chip-packaging plants and the country’s first modern chip fab as part of a larger effort to grow its electronics industry.

But turning India into a chipmaking powerhouse will also require a substantial investment in R&D. And so the Indian government turned to IEEE Fellow and retired Georgia Tech professor Rao Tummala, a pioneer of some of the chip-packaging technologies that have become critical to modern computers. Tummala spoke with IEEE Spectrum during the IEEE Electronic Component Technology Conference in Denver, Colo., in May.

What are you helping the government of India to develop?

Rao Tummala: I’m helping to develop the R&D side of India’s semiconductor efforts. We picked 12 strategic research areas. If you explore research in those areas, you can make almost any electronic system. For each of those 12 areas, there’ll be one primary center of excellence. And that’ll be typically at an IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) campus. Then there’ll be satellite centers attached to those throughout India. So when we’re done with it, in about five years, I expect to see probably almost all the institutions involved.

Why did you decide to spend your retirement doing this?

Tummala: It’s my giving back. India gave me the best education possible at the right time.

I’ve been going to India and wanting to help for 20 years. But I wasn’t successful until the current government decided they’re going to make manufacturing and semiconductors important for the country. They asked themselves: What would be the need for semiconductors, in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years? And they quickly concluded that if you have 1.4 billion people, each consuming, say, $5,000 worth of electronics each year, it requires billions and billions of dollars’ worth of semiconductors.

“It’s my giving back. India gave me the best education possible at the right time.” —Rao Tummala, advisor to the government of India

What advantages does India have in the global semiconductor space?

Tummala: India has the best educational system in the world for the masses. It produces the very best students in science and engineering at the undergrad level and lots of them. India is already a success in design and software. All the major U.S. tech companies have facilities in India. And they go to India for two reasons. It has a lot of people with a lot of knowledge in the design and software areas, and those people are cheaper [to employ].

What are India’s weaknesses, and is the government response adequate to overcoming them?

Tummala: India is clearly behind in semiconductor manufacturing. It’s behind in knowledge and behind in infrastructure. Government doesn’t solve these problems. All that the government does is set the policies and give the money. This has given companies incentives to come to India, and therefore the semiconductor industry is beginning to flourish.

Will India ever have leading-edge chip fabs?

Tummala: Absolutely. Not only will it have leading-edge fabs, but in about 20 years, it will have the most comprehensive system-level approach of any country, including the United States. In about 10 years, the size of the electronics industry in India will probably have grown about 10 times.

This article appears in the August 2024 print issue as “5 Questions for Rao Tummala.”