The Unfair Advantage India Ignored
Why Chip Designers Everywhere. Chip Startups Nowhere.
A few days back, I was listening to a podcast about "unfair advantage", how success has to be coupled with doubling down on your unfair advantage, along with hard work.
(Steve Jobs had an unfair advantage growing up in Silicon Valley, & owning a computer when only less than 1% of households in the early 1970s had access to a personal computer, giving him a head start that helped him co-found Apple).
Got me wondering what mine is (other than being delusional and not having a proper sleeping schedule in 20 years of existence).
Time to get a little more self-aware, I guess.
But before I could overthink that, my accountability questioned me about the blog I promised myself to write regularly and then ended up delaying it for a week just to write on an odd day at an odd hour ( I am sacrificing my sleep when I was planning to wake at 5 and do some meditation), hehehe.
This got me thinking about semiconductors and what unfair advantage India has.
Recently, after Adani, Sridhar Vembu—yes, the founder of Zoho (who tweets a lot)—has backed out of a $700 million semiconductor project. Why?
In his words, “We want to be sure before using taxpayers’ money in this capital-intensive industry.”
Understandable & quite sensible.
It instantly took me back to that “dukandari” episode at Startup Mahakumbh where the Commerce Minister expressed clear frustration—“Why aren’t startups interested in semiconductors?” & to this remember that Reddit rant by an ex-Intel founder? His application for India’s semiconductor program was delayed for 2 years. He eventually gave up trying to sell to Indian clients (private, public, defense) and shifted focus to the US and Europe. His post was brutally honest:
"No startup is going to burn 2 years and 10–20 crores on a product which has no buyer and no market."
Well, even Adani, Intel, Foxconn, and Zoho are backing off. Despite ISM, PLI & all sorts of policies to be “the next semiconductor powerhouse”
Why are we fixated on fabs?
We’re the 3rd biggest electronics consumers with a 100 billion dollar market size after the US & China.
And India under Indian Semiconductor Mission has provided 50% waive off for setting semicon fabs.
But, only 4% of global semiconductor sales happened in India in 2022.
Demand for electronics is high, but for semicons - low.
& that’s the reason we weren’t hesitant to produce chips; so we assemble them. Our domestic demand is shaky, since we get our semiconductors already installed in the parts we assemble.
We are thinking of building an unfair advantage from scratch in fabs: umm. How can we immediately start manufacturing chips?
Less capital
No raw material supply chains (Lithium from Latin America, Silicon from China, machines from the Netherlands- well, tariffs are making it a little bit tougher to have a scattered supply chain)
No skilled labor (10x less efficient labour than the US)
No high-end Indian technology that is patented
But Wait... What If India’s Real Unfair Advantage Isn’t in Building Fabs?
India has 120,000 chip design engineers—that’s 20% of the world’s total. We’re designing chips for Intel, Apple, and Qualcomm. We rank third in chip design research papers globally. For over two decades, multinationals like Broadcom, NVIDIA, and AMD have had design centers here.
These companies bring their IP protection from abroad, and use Indian brains to build their chips.
Our engineering colleges are churning out more design-ready minds than any other country.
By 2032, we’re aiming to train 1.2 million semiconductor engineers. That’s 4x the entire U.S. semicon workforce, which stands at 280,000.
UNFAIR ADVANTAGE? HUH..
But have we given enough focus on protecting them? : Our Legal Framework
India has the 25-year-old Semiconductor Integrated Circuits Layout-Design (SICLD) Act, 2000. In theory, this law protects the layout of chip designs. In reality, it’s outdated and barely used. In 25 years, only 25 registrations have been made under it.
Let’s say you’re a semiconductor founder in India. You and your team spend months crafting a chip layout. You want legal protection. Here's what happens:
You must register to get any protection at all. No registration = no legal rights.
It only protects the physical layout—not the tech, manufacturing process, or functionality.
The law hasn't evolved to match today's tech complexity.
Reverse engineering rules are vague. Someone could copy your layout with minor tweaks and get away with it. (Chip designs are prone to becoming like Sabyasachi designs, and run for replication in no time)
Now imagine the same founder in the U.S.:
They can patent the chip’s tech and processes.
They can copyright the layout.
They can keep trade secrets.
They get enforcement mechanisms that actually work.
So, back to my original question—do I have any unfair advantage?
Maybe I do.
Sometimes, the biggest unfair advantage is recognizing what already sets you apart. And if nothing works out, I’ll copyright my sleeping pattern—pretty sure it’s unique enough. (Let’s hope I don’t have to go to the US to do that until then)
Yours Truly
- Abhishree