Very large Integration talent consists of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by putting together millions of transistors on a single chip. Different applications require different chips. India educates excellent chip designers, but either they work abroad or in the R&D centres of MNCs. They offer good emoluments and working conditions, and the startups cannot match these. Indian educational institutes cannot afford the VLSI faculty talents. They are always short of such faculty. India needs some 5 lac VLSI trained manpower, and we have just 50 percent of it. The government is funding institutes to get the tools needed for chip design, to provide training on these tools, to organise faculty workshops. One can design a chip, But what is crucial is to put it on silicon and test it. Many institutes cannot afford the silicon implementation cost. It costs Rs. 2-3 lac to get a chip fabricated.

And there are no testing facilities except in the IITs. Large semiconductor organisations should partner with the academia.

It is necessary to have undergrad programmes of BTech in electronics and VLSI. The curriculum should be updated to accommodate advanced topics. The basics should be shifted to matric and higher secondary level. Industry experts too should be roped in to teach the students to make them industry-ready when they pass out. Industry professionals are not easily available. Their jobs have deadlines and they lack time. Good VLSI education should become as common as IT education.