New Delhi, Nov. 29 -- The government will invest Rs.4,500 crore over the next three years to modernise the Semi-Conductor Laboratory (SCL) in Mohali and scale up its production a hundredfold, minister for IT and electronics Ashwini Vaishnaw announced on Friday, making it clear the facility will remain in government hands.

The investment, earmarked from Rs.76,000 crore allocated to India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) 1.0 in 2021, will transform SCL into a national tape-out facility where students, researchers and startups can send their chip designs for manufacturing-a service commercial foundries are unlikely to provide.

"Very few universities in the world have semiconductor design capabilities with industry-grade modern tools. In India, ...