Jun 20, 2025 · 1h 26m · neon-show
WHAT Will Decide The Next Superpower? | Raja Manickam | iVP Semiconductor
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this deep-dive podcast interview, veteran semiconductor entrepreneur Raja Manickam and host Siddharth Ahluwalia analyze the global geopolitics of silicon and outline a strategic roadmap for India to build an indigenous semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
Siddhartha as informed peer 4.7 Guest teaching 5.2 Guest disagreement 2.1 Siddhartha pushing back 2.1
speaking balance: gold is Siddhartha, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:03:51 Guest calls out NASSCOM and wealthy domestic tech players
The guest directly challenges the private software sector and NASSCOM leaders to step up, accusing them of making immense fortunes off the country while refusing to back patient, capital-intensive hardware.
Hardest push from Siddhartha ▶ 1:19:01 Host pushes back on India's 10-year lag behind 3nm nodesThe host refuses to accept settling for mature 28nm nodes without pressing the guest on why Taiwan and Korea produce 3nm at scale while India remains a decade behind.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 1:20:12 Guest explains fabless Nvidia versus TSMC foundry dynamicsThe guest corrects the host's conflation of design and fabrication, explaining that Nvidia does not manufacture chips, TSMC is an open foundry, and current 3nm work in India is purely captive offshore engineering for foreign GCCs.
Siddhartha holds their own ▶ 58:45 Host lists India's exact approved fab and OSAT facilitiesThe host demonstrates deep subject familiarity by reading out the precise commercial breakdown, corporate partners, and geographical locations of all six approved semiconductor facilities across India.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Siddhartha as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Siddhartha pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Principles: How Silicon Translates Science into Geopolitical Power | 3 | 5 | 1 | 0 | The host opens with an overview citing AMD CEO Lisa Su on semiconductors becoming central to national strategy. The guest reframes the discussion to first principles, explaining how scientific formulas translate into physical silicon infrastructure. | |
| How America Lost Fab Dominance and the Workforce Reality | 4 | 6 | 2 | 2 | The host brings up Bell Labs, Fairchild, and DARPA to ask why the US ceded fabrication dominance. The guest details the broken feedback loop between design and process engineering, noting the hard cultural and labor realities of running fabs. | |
| The Rise of Taiwan, TSMC, and the Dilemma with China | 4 | 6 | 2 | 2 | The host asks for the historical rise of Taiwan and TSMC and presses on why Taiwan cannot just rely on the US market. The guest provides an insider account of Morris Chang's foundry model and explains Taiwan's commercial entrapment in China. | |
| China's Strategic Playbook and Blueprint for India's Growth | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | The host outlines China's National IC Fund, SMIC, and Huawei's resilience under US export curbs. The guest draws from his Fairchild tenure to describe how Western technology transfers fueled China's domestic scale and outlines how India must learn from that playbook. | |
| India's Frugal Innovation and the Dynamics of the US CHIPS Act | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | The host asks if India can translate its Chandrayaan frugal engineering to hardware chips and inquires about US CHIPS Act political turbulence. The guest validates this using a local edge computing startup in Bangalore and defines the CHIPS Act as viability gap funding. | |
| Geopolitical Sanctions and the Era of Distributed Manufacturing | 5 | 4 | 2 | 3 | The host notes Nvidia generates a third of its revenue from China/Singapore and questions if curbs are bypassed. The guest clarifies modern on-chip telemetry and predicts a shift from mega-concentrated fabs to distributed manufacturing. | |
| Targeting Microcontrollers and Reforming Government Equity | 5 | 6 | 3 | 3 | The host identifies low-cost microcontrollers as an Indian target and questions taxpayer funding in corporate grants. The guest insists the government must call corporate bluffs by taking equity stakes in funded fabs rather than disbursing non-reciprocal grants. | |
| Historical Perspective: Why India Lost Ground in the 1980s | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | The host references India's narrow 2-year lag in 1987 versus its 12-generation lag today at SCL and BEL. The guest recounts his personal experience visiting BEL and explains how socialist policies, resource scarcity, and political interference stalled early momentum. | |
| Overcoming the Design-Only Trap and the India Semiconductor Mission | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | The host critiques India's historical focus on chip design services as an offshore brain drain rather than domestic manufacturing. The guest describes the imperative of domestic product democratization and pragmatic reforms needed for the Design Linked Incentive scheme. | |
| India's Semiconductor Landscape: Mega Fabs and OSAT Facilities | 6 | 5 | 2 | 2 | The host demonstrates strong knowledge by enumerating all six approved semiconductor fab and OSAT plants across Gujarat, Assam, and UP. The guest explains why OSAT assembly packaging is prioritized as lower risk before full-scale commercial wafer fabrication. | |
| Challenging Corporate India and Private Investors to Step Up | 4 | 5 | 4 | 2 | The host asks why prominent Indian IT giants and wealthy tech founders are absent from semiconductor funding. The guest forcefully calls out NASSCOM members and private families to adopt long-term horizon investing instead of expecting 3-year IT returns. | |
| The iVP Semiconductor Vision and Fixing Startup Cashflows | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | The host asks how the $10 billion ISM allocation can maximize return on investment. The guest explains iVP's fabless power semiconductor business and advocates replacing cumbersome government reimbursement grants with government-backed soft credit lines. | |
| Mature Nodes vs. Advanced 3nm Fabs: India's Realistic Path | 6 | 7 | 3 | 5 | The host pushes back on why India is settling for mature 28nm nodes when Taiwan and South Korea produce 3nm chips at scale. The guest delivers a firm reality check on why India lacks the ecosystem to absorb 3nm fabs, clarifying the crucial distinction between fabless designers, foundries, and captive GCCs. |
Statements from this episode (32)
Manickam: Whichever nation masters semiconductor manufacturing will rule the world
“Whoever, you know is able to master this is going to rule the world, right? I mean, this, I think, fundamentally, that has come to, you know, believe, right?”
Manickam: The US has lost semiconductor process capabilities over 30–40 years
“And in this last, I would say, 3040 years, right? We've lost, I mean, when I say we, meaning, you know, US has lost the expertise, the capabilities of process, right?”
Manickam: Asian fab engineers work seven days weekly unlike US workforce
“A Korean engineer or a Taiwanese engineer, you know, will work seven days a week, right? To get the process done and so on, right? Whereas in the US, you know there is you know, much more restrictions on labor and stuff like that.”
Manickam: High pay will eventually draw US workers into semiconductor manufacturing
“You know, and, you know, money-wise, right, obviously, you know, a semiconductor pays really well. So I'm sure, you know, being a very capitalist society, people will eventually get into it. It's going to take a, take some time to do it.”
Manickam: Taiwan Was Historically the Largest or Second-Largest Investor in China
“In fact, I think Taiwan was the biggest investor in in China for a long time. I think next only to Japan.”
Manickam: India Is the Next Major Market Available for Taiwanese Tech
“The next big country market available to them is India.”
Manickam: India's semiconductor market is 100% reliant on foreign imports
“We have an Indian market, right? Which is basically owned by foreign companies today, right? It's all a hundred percent imported from semiconductor standpoint.”
Manickam: Indian chip startups must conquer local market before going global
“We have an opportunity to create Indian companies and the Indian companies should focus on the Indian market first, right? Because this is where you learn how to build products or you learn how to improve on a product, right? You know, quality performance, how…”
Manickam: Supporting foreign chip GCCs is not true semiconductor sovereignty
“I think, you know, the problem that I see for India could be that because of the GCCs and, you know, because we did a lot of software, IT and all that, right? For foreign companies, right? I hope the semiconductor doesn't take that path, right? Of, you know, j…”
Manickam: Indian Chip Solutions Will Be More Practical and Frugal Than Nvidia's
“I always say that when you a solution coming out of India will be completely different for the same problem. Let's say you give a problem to, you know, to Nvidia and to a local company here, right? The solution will be different, right? And I think our solutio…”
Manickam: Ambien Scientific Builds Edge AI Processors From Bangalore House
“This morning I was in a company called Ambien Scientific, right, which makes edge processes, right? About a 40, 50 people team here, small office, right? You know, it's actually in a house, right? Two floors in a house, and excellent engineers, right? All youn…”
Manickam: The US CHIPS Act Is Essentially Viability Gap Funding
“A lot of these companies, if they have to do it in the U S completely, they will need this, you know, in India, we call it viability gap funding. Right? So that Chips Act is basically a viability gap funding.”
Manickam: China will achieve self-sufficiency or cease importing US chips
“I think China will, you know, will be, you know, self-sufficient or at least, you know, make sure that they're not importing from us. So I think that is going to accelerate now.”
Manickam: Global tech innovation will fragment across India, China, Europe, and Japan
“Innovation is going to become not just concentrated in one country anymore. It is going to be India. It's going to be China. It's going to be Europe. It's going to be Japan, right? So there's going to be a lot more fragmented innovation that's going to happen.”
Manickam: Mega factories will give way to distributed manufacturing in 10-20 years
“I have this feeling that all this, you know, concentration of this, you know, whether it's a mega factory or mega bank, you know, everything mega mega, right. I think it's going to become more distributed in the next 10 to 20 years.”
Manickam: Western and Japanese Chipmakers Won't Build Low-Cost Microcontrollers
“You look at, you know, US or European countries or even Japanese companies for the matter, right? They need to have, you know, 55% gross margin and net margins about 40% or so, right? They have certain criteria, right? And they will not be interested in, you k…”
Manickam: Semiconductor Manufacturing Does Not Create Many Jobs Due to Automation
“Semiconductor doesn't create, you know, many, many jobs. Because it's very highly automated, especially manufacturing is very highly automated and so on.”
Manickam: Private Chipmakers Will Accept Government Equity Stakes for Subsidies
“When you're giving, you know, say, 10,000 crores, and if the government says, hey, you know, give me five percent equity, and you think the private sector will not give you five percent to get 10,000 crores? I think it's a very simple argument, right? They wil…”
Ahluwalia: India is 12 generations behind in chip tech, up from two
“In 1987, India was just two years behind the latest chip manufacturing technology. Today we are 12 generations behind”
Manickam: India Will Democratize Semiconductors Like It Did Pharmaceuticals
“And I think, you know, semiconductor will eventually be something like that. I, you know, I believe, right? Where, you know, it will become more and more affordable, right?... So I think, you know, India will democratize a lot of this, you know, in my opinion.…”
Manickam: Product innovation is impossible without domestic manufacturing capabilities
“Without manufacturing, right, you cannot create innovative products, you know, so you need that feedback and, you know you know, how, how they work together.”
Manickam: OSAT packaging is lower risk and complexity than wafer fabs
“OSATs packaging is a relatively, you know, less risk, less complex thing. So that is why, you know three of them are OSATs.”
Manickam: India makes zero LEDs and imports 100% from China
“We don't make any LED in India. It's a hundred percent imported from China.”
Manickam: Indian Governments Fund 70% to 75% of Semiconductor Projects
“50% from central government, states, 20, 25%. So 70, 75%, right, is coming from the governments, right, all this.”
Manickam: Bangalore Has 1,000 People Who Could Invest 100 Crore INR
“Bangalore would have, you know, thousand people who can put a hundred crore each, right? And, you know, they won't even know that they've taken a hundred crore out of the bank, right?”
Manickam: Indian Investors Struggle With High Semiconductor Tool and Salary Costs
“I personally have given a lot of talks to the financials committee And they're, you know, starting to open up their purse. They're a little bit you know, not used to this, right? Because most of the funding goes towards salaries or to tools, right? In our busi…”
Manickam: Soft Loans Fund Chip Startups Better Than Direct Government Grants
“So low cost loans and soft loans will be a better way of, you know, creating more companies and move faster.”
Manickam: India Reaching 3nm Chip Manufacturing in 10 Years Is Very Optimistic
“Definitely. I mean, 10 years is a good, you know, is very optimistic.”
Manickam: Domestic Indian Firms Designing 2nm/3nm Chips Are 4-5 Years Away
“Indian company designing a two nanometer, three nanometer, Indian, Indian company, not a GCC. It's a ways off. I would say probably four, five years from now.”
Manickam: Thousands of small companies in Taiwan support TSMC with $5M–$10M revenues
“If you look at Taiwan, there are thousands and thousands of companies supporting DSMC and all that, you know, and their sales may be 10,000,005 million a year.”
Manickam: YES built complete wafer fab deposition equipment in Coimbatore
“There's a company called YES, which actually make a deposition equipment for the wafer fab. They made the entire equipment out of Coimbatore. They started about, I think, seven or eight years ago as engineering development in Coimbatore, because I was involved…”
Manickam: India needs thousands of small suppliers, not single capital-draining giants
“See equipment making is basically, you know, the big companies like apply materials and lamb research and all that, they're big fab equipment. They basically integrate, right? They have thousands of suppliers, thousands, and each supplier will be a small guy. …”