The Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) is set to implement a plan for developing a semiconductor and chip design industry in Pakistan, targeting multibillion-dollar investment, as reported by Express Tribune.
The initiative requires the government to offer tax incentives and support to attract foreign investment, particularly from China and the U.S., for establishing chip design centers.
The SIFC proposed a government-to-business chip designing facility to stimulate investment and suggested starting with testing and research before fully developing the semiconductor sector.
A semiconductor manufacturing foundry would need an estimated investment of $6-7 billion, with the country facing a shortage of trained professionals.
Muhammad Naqi, CEO of Premier Code, emphasized the need for incremental progress and confidence-building with major industry players to foster investment in testing departments.
He highlighted the necessity of updating educational curricula to address the skilled labor shortage and improving the country’s image to ensure a secure environment for investors and visitors.
The government’s role in assisting local mobile phone brands to increase market share and ensure intellectual property rights protection was also noted. Following the models of China and India, Pakistan aims to elevate its local brands internationally.
The Pakistan National Semiconductor Plan, initiated in 2022, outlines the potential and challenges of the semiconductor industry, emphasizing the need for improvements in business setup and operations, bridging the academic-industry gap through advanced training centers, and offering incentives to attract chip design companies.
The plan also calls for simplifying the customs process to enhance the country’s competitiveness in semiconductor design and manufacturing.
With a large, low-cost labor pool and the backdrop of the US-China trade tensions, Pakistan is poised to position itself as a significant player in the global semiconductor and chip design industry.
“With a large, low-cost labor pool and the backdrop of the US-China trade tensions, Pakistan is poised to position itself as a significant player in the global semiconductor and chip design industry.”
The high skilll, specialized labor pool needed for semiconductor and chip design industry is not large in Pakistan. In fact, it is extremely small.
on paper it sounds wonderful , but fact of the matter is that it needs to have manpower of the highest quality and well equipped with the modern technology, which we sadly lacking in all respects of the needed requirements to initiate such a gigantic task . Although the people here are so talented and no different from others, but it’s most unfortunate that we don’t have sincere leadership, only the vision and good and feasible policies are required to jump start the initiative, which has been declared .
I am working in the third biggest semiconductor manufacturer foundry and have also worked
as semiconductor design professional for last 20+ years in the USA. Pakistan should focus on creating design centers to develop semiconductor chip products in 12nm nodes or higher to have a reduced cost chip design. Pakistan can use foundries like SMIC to manufacture products. Start with smaller chips like Analog/Mixed signal and Some Risc-V processors and let Pakistani top schools develop talent pipeline working together with the industry. Ready to provide help from my experience if needed