How should India measure effective control in semiconductors?

The question

Which semiconductor capabilities can India operate, improve, and preserve under disruption, and where do upstream, qualification, customer, or talent dependencies still constrain action?

Why it matters

Investment totals and fabrication announcements are politically visible but analytically incomplete. Industrial capability also depends on design tools, intellectual property, materials, equipment, packaging, testing, yields, specialised workers, qualification, customers, and patient capital.

What we would need to know

• Map the value chain by layer rather than treating semiconductors as one industry.
• Record commitments, construction, commissioning, qualification, production, and customer adoption separately.
• Test who can operate, maintain, modify, and replace critical inputs at each layer.
• Connect firm-level capability to policy instruments, finance, procurement, research, and workforce institutions.

What the answer could change

An answer would support more defensible sector priorities, partnerships, investment timing, procurement, and public reporting.

Where the question comes from

This question grows out of Dipankar Sarkar's research on control in the semiconductor industry. A full study would keep a dated source record and distinguish reported plans from observed production.