NITI Aayog bats for early push to 2D material development for semicon to gain leadership

New Delhi: NITI Aayog on Thursday called for an early push to the development of 2D materials for chips in the country to gain the leadership position in the semiconductor segment instead of playing the catch-up game with the world in the technology space.

According to NITI Aayog's fourth edition report of Future Front Quarterly Insights series, the 2D materials are roughly 8 lakh times smaller than the tip of a pencil and despite its thinness, they are 200 times stronger than steel and conduct electricity more efficiently than copper.

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The report said that the world of two-dimensional (2D) materials is a frontier that promises to reshape the future of semiconductors, energy, electronics, and quantum computing.

"You need to invest in people, R&D, in creating supply chains and finally products and manufacturing. I think we need to create the entire ecosystem for 2D. We missed the bus in semiconductor, and today we are playing the catch-up game," NITI Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam said while releasing the report.

2D materials are seen to have the potential to replace silicon as the material being used for making all semiconductors at present. It has the potential to come up with 10 times smaller chips compared to the lowest chip size in production at present.

Subrahmanyam said that while India is catching up fast in the semiconductor space but call has to be taken to lead the technology space.

"We are catching up fast. The question is, do you want to be the catch-up person, or do you want to be the, I lead the pack? If you lead, you have a first-mover advantage. You dominate the sector," he said.

Subrahmanyam said that there are already people who are waking up to realise the potential of 2D materials for making semiconductors, including USA, China, Japan, South Korea, etc., who have started investing in the technology.

Niti Frontier Tech Hub, Chief Architect, Debjani Ghosh said the rules of competition have been changing and are today drawn around what the world calls "tech choke points".

"The world is looking at control of supply chains, critical supply chains, control of supply chains, control of standards. In tech, you lead if you set standards, otherwise, you follow. These three things, supply chains, standards, and alliances, are defining the choke points and are also defining how the geopolitical play entirely spans out," Ghosh said.

She said the most critical choke point is the foundation of all scientific and industrial progress -- which is not possible without semiconductors.

"A catch-up strategy becomes very difficult. So when you're thinking about technologies like Semicon, you have to think about a disruptive strategy. This is where 2D materials become very interesting," Ghosh said.

She said that 2D materials represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity to break into the next wave of semiconductor and quantum technologies, not by following the old path, but by pretty much rewriting the rules.

"If silicon was the, you know, it defined, was the anchor on which, the bedrock on which the Semicon landscape of yesterday and today is defined, then 2D material is gonna be the bedrock on which the Semicon landscape of tomorrow will be defined. So we have the time, and we have the capabilities, I believe, to start acting today to safeguard our Semicon future," Ghosh said.

Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Professor Mayank Shrivastava said that the current manufacturing strategy, including semiconductors or electronics in the country, is based on the use of licensed technology.

"If we develop or manufacture using licensed technology, there is an umbilical cord which is built in from the place, the country, or the organisation from where the technology has been licensed, and that umbilical cord can always be pulled back or twisted against a nation," he said.

Shrivastava said that while the manufacturing approach is important to build an ecosystem, but at the same time, there is a need to make efforts in addressing the issue of umbilical cord going forward in the longer term.

"The path is very clear, you want to become a technology leader, you invest in future tech, own intellectual properties, and then you manufacture using home-grown technology. In that case, there's no umbilical cord, there's no arm-twisting. This is where the difference between, or the transition from silicon to 2D materials comes, in the context of the Semicon leadership," Shrivastava said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Electronics and IT, in collaboration with the Department of Science and Technology, have invited interest for research and product development using 2D Materials.

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