India’s only semiconductor fab is getting a Rs 4,500-crore upgrade. But what this is buying for the Semi-Conductor Laboratory (SCL) in Mohali is modest compared to the government’s public promises. 

Ashwini Vaishnaw, the minister of electronics and information technology, has said that this modernisation will increase SCL’s production capacity by 100X, bring in new technology, and create a design and talent-development ecosystem. The actual plan is more prosaic—a modest 3X capacity jump and a few additional tech capabilities that augment current systems but don’t signal a materially advanced........

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