Chip making has not been India’s strength. A semi-conductor fabrication unit called fab requires huge capital investment, as technology becomes obsolete every two years, necessacitating fresh infusion of capital for upgradation to be in the game. Besides fabrication work accounts only 40 per cent of the total cost of production of a semiconductor chip.
Gordon Moore of Intel in 1965 framed Moore’s Law based on the prediction that the number of transistors in a chip will double every two years. It thus increases the processing power and brings prices down. More power is packed into the smaller chips.
Smaller distances an electron travels in smaller chip. It increases the speed. A few years back chips used to be 28 and 25 nanometers, are now 7 to 5 nanometers. A5-nanometer chip is two to three atoms into the making of a transistor.
However, there is a physical limit to miniaturization, since beyond this P-N junction will not work. A P-N junction is an interface between two types of semiconductor material which make the silicon transistor work.
In the absence of Moore Law, a fab could amortise its cost over a longer period sufficient to monetise the investment. Action would move to software, away from the hardware.
Alternative technologies such as 3D stacking, parallelism and multi-core chips, putting chips on each other (rather than on the board) could be used to increase volume and speed. Multi-core chips could be made, though there is a limit to the cores being used. India can play a role here. India has to use new materials and new technologies to take a lead.
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