Why India Is Starting With Older Chip Technology, Not the Newest

Imagine India's first major fab, covered under the Dholera Fab discussion elsewhere on this site, operating at the 28-nanometre node, a process technology that TSMC, covered elsewhere on this site as controlling roughly 70 percent of global foundry capacity, first commercialised well over a decade ago, and industry leaders having since progressed to 2-nanometre and below, and understanding why India deliberately chose to start at this considerably older technology level rather than attempting to compete directly at the industry's cutting edge from day one.

This choice reflects genuine market reality often lost in media coverage that fixates on the most advanced chips, the overwhelming majority of global chip demand by unit volume, automotive electronics, industrial equipment, appliances, basic consumer electronics, actually runs on mature node chips like 28nm rather than the cutting-edge nodes powering flagship smartphones and AI accelerators, meaning India's mature-node focus targets the genuinely largest addressable market by volume, not a niche corner of global chip demand.

Mature node manufacturing also carries considerably lower technical and capital risk than advanced node fabrication, covered under the EUV Lithography discussion elsewhere on this site, the extraordinarily expensive, technically demanding equipment and processes required for sub-10-nanometre chips represent a vastly higher execution risk for a first-time fab operator than mature node manufacturing, making 28nm a genuinely sensible starting point for building fundamental fabrication competence before potentially pursuing more advanced capability.

This strategic sequencing mirrors how other successful semiconductor manufacturing nations historically built their industries, covered throughout this page, few countries successfully leapt directly to advanced-node leadership without first establishing mature-node manufacturing competence and supply chain maturity, meaning India's current mature-node focus represents a genuinely conventional, proven industry development pathway rather than a limitation reflecting insufficient ambition, with advanced node capability remaining a plausible, if genuinely distant, future phase rather than the immediate goal.