A Vision for Advanced Packaging: Delivering Maximum Value with Minimum Investment

Prof. Rao R. Tummala

India stands at a pivotal moment in its semiconductor journey. While the nation has achieved global recognition in chip design and software, it now has a unique opportunity to become a leader in advanced packaging and eventually evolve into a world-class Systems Foundry.

By focusing on advanced packaging and workforce development, India can create semiconductor-driven economy of the twenty-first century. In my opinion, advanced packaging has emerged as one of the most strategic technologies in the semiconductor industry. It enables the integration of chips, chiplets, memory, photonics, sensors, RF components, and power devices into highly functional systems that power artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, communications, transportation, healthcare, defense, and consumer electronics.

As the demand for AI increases, advanced packaging is becoming the key technology that connects semiconductor innovation to real-world applications. This opportunity is further strengthened by a fundamental industry shift from the traditional System-on-Chip (SoC) paradigm to the System-on-Package (SoP) paradigm, a concept pioneered by me at Georgia Tech.

For decades, semiconductor progress depended on transistor scaling to improve performance and reduce costs. Today, scaling faces physical, electrical, and economic constraints, while the cost of advanced semiconductor fabrication continues to rise dramatically. As a result, innovation is increasingly moving from the transistor level to the package and system levels.

For India, advanced packaging represents a practical and highly attractive pathway into semiconductor manufacturing. Unlike advanced wafer fabrication facilities that require investments of tens of billions of dollars, advanced packaging offers significantly lower capital requirements while creating high-value manufacturing and innovation opportunities.

By integrating multiple specialized chips into optimized architectures, advanced packaging delivers greater functionality, higher performance, lower power consumption, faster development cycles, and improved design flexibility. In my opinion, India’s ambition should be more than participation in this transformation. The country should aspire to become a global leader in selective strategic areas of advanced packaging. This vision requires the development of a comprehensive Semiconductor-to-Systems ecosystem that spans system design and architectures, advanced substrates and interconnect technologies, embedded power integration, assembly and testing, reliability engineering, workforce development, commercialization, and startup creation.

At the center of this vision is a national innovation ecosystem built through strong partnerships among academia, industry, startups, and government. I propose the establishment of nine Industry Co-Development Technology Centers across leading institutions, including IITs, IISc, and BITS, together with a National System Integration Center and a pilot line at IIT Gandhinagar. These centers would focus on strategic technologies such as chiplet architectures, glass-core substrates, power-efficient packaging, photonic packaging, thermal management, reliability engineering, and advanced testing. The pilot line would serve as a critical bridge between research and manufacturing, accelerating the translation of laboratory innovations into commercially viable products. It would provide researchers, students, startups, and industry partners with an environment to develop, validate, and scale next-generation technologies before commercialization.

A defining feature of this strategy is its distributed innovation model. Rather than concentrating resources and expertise in one location, specialized centers across the country would focus on complementary strengths. This hub-and-spoke approach would leverage India’s diverse capabilities, develop regional talent, improve resilience, encourage industry participation, and accelerate innovation nationwide.

Close industry engagement would ensure that research remains aligned with market needs and rapidly advances toward commercialization. Workforce development is equally important. The semiconductor industry will require thousands of engineers, scientists, technicians, operators, and manufacturing specialists. India can build this talent pipeline through interdisciplinary academic programs, industry internships, professional certifications, pilot-line training, and collaborative research initiatives. By aligning education with industry needs , the nation can develop one of the world’s largest and most capable semiconductor workforces.

Advanced packaging also supports India’s broader goals of technological self-reliance, economic growth, and national security. As global supply chains seek trusted manufacturing and innovation partners, India can emerge as a preferred destination for advanced packaging, assembly, testing. This strategy can reduce import dependence, create high-value jobs, attract investments, accelerate startup creation, and strengthen national competitiveness.

Achieving this vision will require, however,a sustained commitment, strategic investments, coordinated policies, and deep partnerships among government, industry, and academia. The rewards, however, will be transformative.

(The author is Father of Advanced Packaging, Emeritus Professor, Georgia Tech, Advisor, ISM)