It happens in most parts of the world: high demand stimulates reallocation of capital as companies work to boost supply to realign the equilibrium points. With the world struggling on the scarcity of semiconductor products, we all expect companies to move into that domain. Expectedly, companies are responding.
In this piece, Samuel Nwite writes on how India’s TATA is moving into the semiconductor business: “At the Tata group, we have already pivoted into a number of new businesses like electronics manufacturing, 5G network equipment as well as semiconductors, in all probability.”
The production vacuum created by global chip shortage has opened an opportunity for divestiture that many companies are jumping on. From existing semiconductor companies working on production expansion to tech companies delving into chip manufacturing, the semiconductor industry is seeing an uptick in investment interest.
The Tata group has become the latest company looking to make a foray into semiconductor manufacturing and it has set up a business to seize the opportunity.
Chairman N Chandrasekaran said on Monday while speaking at the annual general meeting of the IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry, that Tata is poised at taking advantage of post-pandemic technology by expanding its manufacturing.
Yet, do not expect any shift in the market. This business takes time. TSMC has a minor competitor: TATA Semiconductors. And India is moving into that future.
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My proposal for Africa is to follow the MOSIS strategy by having a continent-wide strategy which connects all universities and SMEs, and over time, we can build critical chip making capability for a top-grade foundry. Of course, you do not use generators to power clean rooms which means we will remain spectators as nations build the infrastructures of the 21st century.
Yet, besides changing the name of the science and technology ministry to science, technology and innovation ministry, Nigeria needs to develop a semiconductor roadmap. The empires of the future would be built on silicon and Nigeria cannot afford not to be part of that future. And that roadmap could be as simple as guaranteed power supply which will make it possible to run foundries and clean rooms. If President Buhari leaves in 2023 without fixing power, it would be exceedingly depressing!
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We are deep into 2021, and you expect Buhari to fix power by 2023? I don’t know what you meant by that, but he’s not likely to be bothered with words like ‘unfortunate’ or ‘depressing’, for obvious reasons anyway.
Few years ago, the same ministry came up with one long document like that, how far have we gone on that one? Now you want them to develop semiconductor roadmap? Our power roadmap took off around 2011, and for ten years we haven’t powered any city successfully, let alone a state, and you want us to delve into semiconductor, which also needs power to function?
Can we just pick one thing, just one small thing and deliver convincingly on that, at least to show that we are capable of executing something as a nation?
You learn alphabets before you graduate to writing essays, we haven’t passed the alphabets test yet, so take it easy with Nigeria.