India’s Chip Manufacturing Push Highlights a Growing Production-Test Skills Gap
India’s semiconductor ambitions are moving from design rooms to manufacturing floors, and that shift is revealing a critical challenge: the country needs more engineers with hands-on experience in production testing.
For years, India has built a strong reputation in semiconductor design, software engineering, embedded systems, and chip validation. Global chip companies have established major engineering centers across the country, making India an important hub for pre-silicon development and design verification. But as India pushes deeper into semiconductor manufacturing, especially through new OSAT facilities and upcoming fab projects, a different set of skills is becoming essential.
Executives from Emerson’s NI test and measurement business say the next phase of India’s semiconductor growth will depend heavily on production-test capability. Baskar Ceri, Managing Director of NI India at Emerson, said demand for semiconductor production-test systems in India is expected to rise significantly over the next three to five years as outsourced semiconductor assembly and test projects scale up and local manufacturing capacity expands.
India’s semiconductor sector has seen several attempts to build a manufacturing base in the past, but Ceri believes the current investment cycle is showing stronger momentum.
“This is the third time, and we are seeing some real traction this time,” Ceri said.
NI already has a strong presence in India’s design and validation ecosystem. However, the larger opportunity in semiconductor production testing will likely take longer to develop because manufacturing brings a new set of technical demands.
The difference between design testing and production testing is important. Design and validation work focuses on proving that a chip functions as intended before it moves into mass production. Production testing, on the other hand, takes place in high-volume manufacturing environments where speed, accuracy, yield, reliability, and cost efficiency are all crucial.
That requires engineers who understand not only software and automation, but also hardware systems, manufacturing processes, test strategy, data analysis, debugging, and yield improvement.
Srinivasa Prasad, India R&D Site Head and Senior Director at NI India, Emerson, said India’s semiconductor workforce evolved first from software engineering, then into embedded systems and chip design as multinational companies expanded their operations in the country. As a result, much of India’s testing expertise has been concentrated around design verification rather than manufacturing-scale testing.
As chips move into production, the required skill set changes.
“You need to kind of change that to yield engineering, DFT specialist, DFM specialist,” Prasad said, adding that system-level testing is another area where India needs to build deeper expertise.
DFT, or design for test, helps ensure chips can be efficiently tested during manufacturing. DFM, or design for manufacturing, focuses on making products easier and more reliable to manufacture at scale. Yield engineering is also critical because even small improvements in production yield can have a major impact on cost and profitability.
India is now trying to build these capabilities while competing with established semiconductor manufacturing regions that have spent decades developing production knowledge. Universities, training institutions, and government-supported programs are beginning to address the gap, but creating experienced manufacturing engineers will take time.
Ceri said the shortage is not limited to highly specialized semiconductor roles. NI is also seeing a broader need for electronics engineers who can design, build, and operate production-test environments.
“Test engineering is not just coding,” Ceri said.
According to him, coding makes up only about 15% to 20% of the overall test-engineering workflow. The rest involves test planning, system architecture, hardware interaction, debugging, measurement accuracy, automation strategy, and interpreting test data.
That distinction matters for India’s chip strategy. The country’s strength in software gives it a valuable foundation, but high-volume semiconductor manufacturing requires a more manufacturing-focused engineering ecosystem.
For test-equipment companies, India’s transition could create a new kind of market. Until now, much of NI’s work in India has been linked to semiconductor design and validation. As manufacturing expands, demand is expected to grow for adaptable test platforms that can support products from early development through mass production.
Ceri said NI’s approach is to provide test systems that can evolve across the product lifecycle rather than treating design, validation, and manufacturing as separate environments. This could become increasingly important as chips become more complex and product development timelines continue to shrink.
The global surge in artificial intelligence is also affecting the test-equipment market. Heavy investment in AI infrastructure has increased demand for semiconductors and related manufacturing resources, creating supply constraints in some components and test systems. India is building its semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem at a time when established chip-producing regions are also expanding capacity to meet AI-driven demand.
AI may help ease part of the engineering challenge, but NI does not expect it to replace skilled test engineers.
The company is integrating its Nigel AI technology with tools such as LabVIEW and TestStand to help engineers develop tests, analyze results, and improve productivity. Prasad said NI has seen productivity improvements of around 20% to 30% from the technology. Ceri said some cases have shown gains of up to 50%, although the company indicated that more details on customer examples would be shared separately.
Even with AI, engineers will remain central to the testing process. Automation can reduce repetitive tasks and help manage increasing complexity, but it cannot fully replace the judgment, system knowledge, and manufacturing experience needed in semiconductor production.
India’s semiconductor industry is entering a defining stage. The country already has a deep base of design talent, but its next challenge is to develop the production engineering skills required for assembly, packaging, testing, and fabrication.
As OSAT operations ramp up and fab projects move forward, India’s chip talent needs will expand well beyond design and validation. The success of the country’s semiconductor manufacturing push will depend not only on investment and infrastructure, but also on how quickly it can train and develop engineers who understand the realities of high-volume chip production.
