NXP Semiconductors urging partners like TSMC, GlobalFoundries to build in India

Kurt Sievers, president and CEO of the Dutch semiconductor designer and manufacturer, was in the national capital to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, wherein they talked about India’s semiconductor ecosystem and NXP’s commitment to being an important player in it.

Sievers said he told Modi that he would “strongly recommend” India as a future location for their foundry partners.

“We believe in the geopolitical context, currently India should be a very neutral and democratic place to have global manufacturing,” he said. “We have (already started) discussions (with partners) as we speak. (They are) very open. It has as much to do with the attractiveness of India as much as with the geopolitical situation. I will be very vocal and supportive to our manufacturing partners to strongly consider India.”

Sievers said India offers good infrastructure and education, but it increasingly scores on the geopolitical front as semiconductor manufacturing locations are being chosen much more from a political perspective. In that sense, he said India was an attractive choice.

Sievers said India’s electronics manufacturing and design industry had the potential to become a much larger player in the global electronics value chain.

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NXP is looking to aggressively build and expand on its R&D capabilities in the country. Currently, the company has facilities in Noida, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune with around 1,200 engineers in all.The Bengaluru and Noida centres are the two of NXP’s “biggest R&D sites”, he said.

“Our Indian R&D engineers are one-third of the overall NXP R&D force. But I did commit that we will aggressively build this going forward because we see a very strong future for NXP and for India being aligned.”

Sievers said the company was working on chips for electronic passports in India.

He said the company has tied up with a partner that is printing the passport and will put the chip into the passport.

“My understanding is we will have like 45 million Indian passports with our chips by next year ready,” he said. “It’s a very fast ramping business.”

Tata Consultancy Services bagged the electronic passport mandate from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) last year.

Sievers also said the company would work extensively with Indian startups to better innovation and provide them with a global platform.

During his interaction with the prime minister, Sievers reiterated his support to build a strong semiconductor ecosystem in India, especially on the design and software side.

Apart from the automotive space, where NXP is deeply involved in, he said industrial automation and healthcare were the two emerging sectors that held promise for the company.