Strong opportunities, but India will take time to be a chip hub: MediaTek executive

Scarcity of skilled workers could delay India’s rise as a global semiconductor manufacturing hub, said a top executive at Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek.

Highlighting the complexity and time involved in setting up semiconductor facilities, MediaTek said it typically takes four years from groundbreaking to mass production-even in the US which has an established workforce.

“For India, where the workforce in the semiconductor manufacturing industry is still relatively new, it might take longer,” David Ku, co-COO, and CFO, MediaTek told reporters on Wednesday.

Mediatek’s comments come in the midst of India’s push to emerge as a chip manufacturing powerhouse, with six chip fabrication facilities approved so far. The latest is a joint venture between HCL and Taiwan’s Foxconn, in Uttar Pradesh.

MediaTek, however, sees India as a front end for software development-which comprise a major part of its operations in the country. “On the software side, we have been very aggressive in training the Indian workforce, driven by the availability of skilled talent,” Ku said.

Live Events

Mediatek also sees strong opportunities following the Indian government delicensing the lower portion of the 6GHz band for WiFi services.Thomas Ho, marketing director, MediaTek, said the development will catapult the launch and deployment of WiFi 7, which offers far faster speeds than previous generations, in India. Ho said telecom operators see WiFi 7 as a way to boost average revenue per user (ARPU), add more services, and position themselves as technology leaders.

In satellite connectivity, which is starting to take off in India, MediaTek said it is working on customer premises equipment (CPEs) such as hybrid set-top boxes catering to both terrestrial and satellite requirements.

A supplier to Elon Musk-owned Starlink, MediaTek said the converged technology is ready, but the costs of deployment are high. “…There are already talks in other regions of the world about using satellite or 5G as a backup when wired broadband is unavailable…A one-box solution is possible,” Ho said.

MediaTek sees the future where with 6G connectivity, a consumer will not know whether the communication signal is coming from a terrestrial network or a satellite network.

_{Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.}