Lam Research, a US-based company, commits Rs 241 crore to support training of Indian chip workforce

New Delhi, April 15 (IANS) US-based Lam Research Corporation has pledged nearly $29 million in software licenses to upskill 2,800 students over the next two years. The company signed an MoU with the Indian Semiconductor Mission and Indian Institute of Science to prepare a future workforce for the chip industry. The pact includes support for infrastructure and operational costs, and aims to expand to multiple universities.

The collaboration involves training trainers at selected universities by IISc, and deployment of a dedicated team by Lam across the country. Rangesh Raghavan, Corporate VP at Lam Research India, emphasized the importance of ‘Semiverse Solutions’ for scaling a workforce to meet industry demand through a virtual-physical fabrication world.

The ‘Semiverse Solutions’ leverage Lam’s portfolio strengths in virtual technology, processing, and simulations to provide a boundary-less virtual learning platform. Professor Srinivasan Raghavan from IISc highlighted the success of the pilot with participants already placed in a global semiconductor company. The programme aims to educate 60,000 engineers over a decade in semiconductor fabrication technologies.

According to Akash Tripathi, CEO of ISM, effective skill development partnerships will be crucial as the semiconductor industry in India grows. The initiative comes at a time when the industry is facing a talent shortage to meet future demand. The MoU between Lam Research, ISM, and IISc reflects a strategic effort to address this challenge and contribute to the growth of the semiconductor ecosystem in India.