Union Minister Vaishnaw commissions 'India Validation Centre' in Bengaluru

Bengaluru: Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday commissioned the 'India Validation Centre' here and said that it is a testament to the dedication and effectiveness of the government’s approach to build India's resiliency in chip manufacturing.

He noted that the Centre by Applied Materials (a leader in materials engineering solutions used to produce virtually every new chip and advanced display in the world) marks the next step in the company's journey of enabling the semiconductor ecosystem in India.

Speaking at the event, the Minister said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India's semiconductor ecosystem has achieved significant growth over the past few years.

"The envisaged semiconductor ecosystem is going to play a huge part in making India a developed nation. The India Validation Centre is a testament to the dedication and effectiveness of our approach to build India's resiliency in chip manufacturing and Applied Materials has been a trusted partner in enabling the Indian Semiconductor dream.

"Almost every consumer tech product that runs on a chip today has Applied Materials engineering imprinted in them. This Center will further help develop manufacturing capabilities in the sector and exemplify the trust that global companies have placed in India," he said.

Elaborating on the Centre, the Applied Materials officials in a statement said, "Built with the highest safety standards, the Centre enables early pilots, talent, and capability development for the upcoming India Collaborative Engineering Centre including validation, process engineering, lab management, and collaboration with academia and suppliers. It adds new capabilities to enable end-to-end design, characterization, and qualification of semiconductor equipment. In this lab, Applied Materials demonstrated the capability to process 300-mm wafers in IVC; a first for private industry in India."

Dr. Prabu Raja, President of the Semiconductor Products Group at Applied Materials said, "We believe this is India’s time to shine, and Applied Materials' India Validation Center is one of the many milestones in our innovation journey. We will continue to develop our capabilities in India to support customers and work with supply chain partners to strengthen the local ecosystem and help India’s semiconductor industry succeed."

Meanwhile, Satheesh Kuppurao, Vice President of Business Development and Country President of Applied Materials India said it is an exciting time to be part of the semiconductor value chain in India, and assured that they are committed to developing the country’s semiconductor ecosystem.

"The commissioning of our India Validation Centre will enable us to coach, train, and demonstrate higher-level applications development work that is needed to support the growing semiconductor ecosystem in India," he said.