Every phone, car, satellite and power grid runs on semiconductor chips. For decades, India designed many of the world's chips in its engineering centres but imported almost all the chips it used.
That is starting to change. Indian labs have built their own processors, the first commercial chip plants have begun production in Gujarat, and in September 2026 the government opened a second, larger phase of its semiconductor mission.
Here is what India has built so far, and what is still ahead.
Why Chips Matter
A chip is a small piece of silicon carrying millions or billions of tiny switches. It is the part of a device that computes, stores and controls.
Making chips is one of the hardest things industry does, and production is concentrated in a few places in the world. When supply is disrupted, factories everywhere feel it.
For India, being able to design and make chips at home is about more than trade. It affects the reliability of its space programme, its defence systems and its fast-growing electronics industry.
Vikram 3201: A Processor Built for Space
Vikram 3201 is a 32-bit microprocessor developed by ISRO with the Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL) in Chandigarh, where it was also made.
It was presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at SEMICON India 2025 in New Delhi on 2 September 2025, and was described as India's first fully indigenous 32-bit processor.
It is not a phone or laptop chip. It is designed for rocket avionics and must work from −55 °C to +125 °C. Its first validation in space came on ISRO's PSLV-C60 mission, which carried the SpaDeX docking experiment.
SHAKTI and IRIS: Open-Source Chips from IIT Madras
SHAKTI is a family of processors designed at IIT Madras. It is based on RISC-V, an open instruction set that anyone can use without paying licence fees to a foreign company.
In February 2025, IIT Madras and ISRO announced IRIS, a 64-bit SHAKTI-based controller for space applications. It was fabricated at SCL Chandigarh and packaged and assembled by Indian companies.
IRIS was the third SHAKTI chip to be fabricated, after RIMO in 2018 and MOUSHIK in 2020. The work is funded under the Ministry of Electronics and IT's Digital India RISC-V initiative.
DHRUV64: A 64-bit Processor from C-DAC
In December 2025 the Ministry of Electronics and IT announced DHRUV64, a 64-bit, dual-core processor running at 1.0 GHz, developed by C-DAC.
It is also based on RISC-V and was built under the government's Microprocessor Development Programme, as part of C-DAC's VEGA processor family. It was made on a 28-nanometre process.
DHRUV64 is aimed at 5G equipment, vehicles, industrial automation and connected devices, where Indian companies could use a home-grown processor instead of licensing one from abroad.
From Design to Factory
Designing a chip is only half the story. It also has to be fabricated, then assembled, tested and packaged before it can go into a device.
Under the India Semiconductor Mission, the government has approved 12 chip manufacturing and packaging plants. By July 2026, three had started commercial production.
Micron Technology's assembly and test plant at Sanand, Gujarat, began commercial production in early 2026 and was inaugurated by the Prime Minister in February. Kaynes Semicon's packaging plant, also in Sanand, was inaugurated on 31 March 2026.
The largest project is Tata Electronics' fab at Dholera, Gujarat, built with Taiwan's PSMC. It is described as India's first commercial semiconductor fab, and is targeting its first chips by the end of 2026.
Semicon 2.0: The Next Phase
On 15 July 2026 the Union Cabinet approved the second phase of the India Semiconductor Mission, with an outlay of about ₹1.27 lakh crore.
The first phase focused mainly on factories. The second covers the whole chain: chip design, equipment and materials, fabs, assembly and packaging, research, and training engineers.
The Prime Minister formally opened the new phase at SEMICON India 2026, held at Yashobhoomi in New Delhi from 17 to 19 September 2026.
What the Revolution Is, and Isn't
It helps to be precise about how far India has come.
India's progress now spans every stage of making a chip:
- Chip design
- Open-source RISC-V
- Space-grade processors
- Fabrication
- Assembly and packaging
- Engineering talent
The processors built so far are made on mature processes. That suits rockets, satellites and industrial equipment, which value reliability over raw speed. The most advanced chips in phones and AI servers are still made abroad.
India has also made chips before: SCL Chandigarh has fabricated them for decades. What is new is the scale: commercial plants, private investment and a steady run of home-grown designs.
Most of the new plants assemble and package chips rather than make the silicon itself. The Dholera fab, once running, will be the real test.
A chip is small. The ability to make one is not. India is building that ability one step at a time.
Sources & Further Reading
- PIB: SEMICON India 2026 at Yashobhoomi, New Delhi, 17–19 September 2026 — Official announcement of the event, its dates and venue.
- PIB: DHRUV64, India's first 1.0 GHz, 64-bit dual-core processor — Official note on C-DAC's DHRUV64 and the Microprocessor Development Programme.
- IIT Madras: IIT Madras and ISRO develop and boot the SHAKTI-based IRIS chip — Press release on IRIS, its partners and the earlier SHAKTI chips.
- Business Standard: What is the Vikram 32-bit processor? — Explainer on Vikram 3201, ISRO and SCL.
- Business Standard: Cabinet clears India Semiconductor Mission 2.0 — The ₹1.27 lakh crore outlay, and three of 12 approved plants in production.
- PM India: PM inaugurates Micron's ATMP facility in Sanand — Official release on the Micron assembly and test plant.
- Akashvani News: PM inaugurates Kaynes Semicon's OSAT plant in Sanand — Report of the 31 March 2026 inauguration.
- Tata group: Tata to build the nation's first fab in Dholera — The Tata Electronics and PSMC fab project.
- India Semiconductor Mission — The government's official site for the programme.