“It has been agreed that India and Japan will create an implementation organisation in which there will be opportunities for government-to-government as well as industry-to-industry collaboration,” Vaishnaw said.
The Rapidus Corporation of Japan, a Tokyo-headquartered semiconductor manufacturer formed in August 2022 with the support of Japanese companies such as Denso, Kioxia, MUFG Bank, NEC, NTT, SoftBank, Sony, and Toyota will be an important part of this memorandum of cooperation, he said.
“We are talking to Rapidus to expand their presence to India. Talks are at an advanced stage,” he said, adding that the implementation organisation which will be formed will create a direct channel of communication at the government level between the two countries.
This, another official from the IT ministry said, will help in clearing any confusion that Japanese companies have with respect to the Indian Semiconductor Mission (ISM), and ensure that the investors have clarity of where to invest and how.
“There is a complimentary strength between Indian and Japan. Rapidus has been formed to work on lead nodes of 2 (nm) nanometers semiconductor fabrication in Japan. They may not bring that in India. But there is more than enough demand for legacy nodes as well. If we are able to foray into that space and make a mark in the legacy node space, it will serve both Indian and Japanese markets,” the official said.
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This is the second major country-level agreement that India has signed. Earlier this year, India and the US had signed multiple agreements to cooperate and work together on semiconductor design, manufacturing, packaging as well as supply chain resilience. While companies from the US are world leaders in manufacturing and packaging, companies from Japan are leaders in peripheral industries which produce the chemicals and gasses needed for the manufacturing of semiconductor chips, Vaishnaw said.
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