A PLI Scheme for 'Space-Grade Electronics' is what the doctor advises

If India has to excel with its space economy ambitions, it must quickly get a foothold in the R&D and manufacturing of space-grade electronics. The Indian government should mull over a Production-Linked Incentive Scheme for the same.

On June 10, 2022, Prime Narendra Modi inaugurated the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe) headquarters in Ahmedabad. The IN-SPACe is preparing to ensure greater participation for India’s private sector in the growing global space economy, which is currently to grow nearly four times from approximately US$ 550 billion to US$ 3 trillion by 2040. For India to take large stakes in the massive catapult of space economy, it must not satiate itself with assembling satellite and space launch vehicles domestically. IN-SPACe must soon develop an industrial strategy for space technologies’ absolute essentials, space-grade electronics.

The Indian government aims to grow the more significant Indian electronics industry valued at US$ 67.3 billion in 2020-21 to US$ 300 billion by 2026. The global electronics industry is estimated to be around US$ 2.9 trillion. The ‘Roadmap and Strategies for $300 billion Electronics Manufacturing & Exports by 2026’ unveiled by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY) in January 2022 has identified consumer electronics, mobile phones, information technology hardware, wearable devices, electric vehicles, and LED lighting as manufacturing targets.

Likewise, there are two product segments that the roadmap mentions, strategic electronics, and defence electronics. MeITY identifies radars, security and safety systems, terahertz wireless systems, micro-and millimeter-wave sensors, and electromagnetic wave applications as strategic electronics. On the other hand, defence electronics would include electronics included in weapon systems, communication, command, control, computers, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (C4ISR), secured networks, aerial, submarine, and terrestrial platforms, among others.

The roadmap also aims to grow the ‘strategic electronics’ product segment, from manufacturing $4 billion worth of electronics in 2020-21 to $12 billion worth of electronics in 2025-26. Likewise, by 2032, the ‘defence electronics’ sector aims to grow to $60 billion, with $40 billion coming from the product ecosystem and $20 billion from sub-assemblies and components. Wishfully, one would want to see ‘space-grade electronics’ included in both categories. However, the absence of any mention of space-grade electronics in the Roadmap and the National Policy for Electronics 2019 is perplexing.

Space-grade electronics can withstand the harsh environments of outer space, be it solar radiation, cosmic radiation, or extreme space weather events. These are radiation-hardened electronics designed to work with excellent measurement precision, high power density, high energy efficiency, operate at high traveling speeds, extreme vibrations and noise, stresses and shocks, and while enduring all that serve critical missions.

The material requirements of designing and fabricating space-grade electronics are different from conventional consumer electronics used on Earth. Their design and fabrication are much different from traditional electronics and would need stand-out infrastructure. Materials like gallium nitride, silicon carbide, silicon, and silicon-germanium are of choice for space-grade electronics. These materials have higher thermal conductivity, power densities, efficiencies than conventional silicon-based semiconductor materials. Silicon carbide, being a high-temperature enduring ‘refractory’ material, has additional advantage of enduring high temperature radiations and will be of great significance on operating close to the Sun or on high-temperature planets like Venus. Ongoing research efforts on space-grade electronics made of single-crystal and polycrystalline diamond are demonstrating excellent results. Designers and laboratories interested in diamonds as semiconductors, if encouraged by IN-SPACe, would concurrently enhance synthetic diamond industry in the country. Synthetic semiconductor-class diamonds, doped with elements like silicon or hydrogen to add to its functional efficiency, could be mass-manufactured in labs and could prove to be highly cost-effective space-grade electronics. Research on a new class of self-healing, radiation-hardened, space-grade electronics, made of metal oxides like Zinc Oxide, has also been advancing rapidly. None of these materials are generally used for conventional electronics.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has been producing mission-specific space-grade electronics for its satellites, spacecraft, ground segment, and launch vehicles at times through the Semi-Conductor Laboratory in Chandigarh and its various industrial partners. Likewise, the Defence Research Development Organization (DRDO), which has publicly ventured into the construction of electronic intelligence satellites, gets its space-grade electronics designed and constructed from its in-house labs, namely, SITAR and GAETEC. Both ISRO and DRDO have also cultivated home-grown space-grade electronics and semiconductor manufacturers as their vendors. However, the domestic production volume of space-grade electronics has been low and made only for very few orders.

With a growing emphasis on commercial space-based 5G+ communications, real-time remote sensing, and the ever-increasing number of launch vehicle and satellite manufacturing companies in India and globally, the demand for ‘space-grade electronics’ will increase tremendously. Access to affordable space-grade electronics will be vital in bringing down the cost of launch, cost of operations, and eventually the downstream services possible via space-based applications. Space-grade electronics is a serious necessity globally. Recently in February 2022, the US space contractor, SpaceX, lost 40 out of 49 satellites of its StarLink constellation to geomagnetic storms emanating from the Sun. The electronics on these satellites could not resist the barrage of charged and highly-energetic particles from the Sun.

India has already laid out a well-defined budget outlay of Rs. Seventy-six thousand crores under the Semiconductor India Programme, over six years, starting from December 2021, with incentives going out to semiconductor design companies, those interested in setting up Assembly, Testing, Marking, and Packaging (ATMP) facilities, display panels, and semiconductor fabrication units. However, there is a need for a dedicated national strategy for designing and fabricating electronics for small satellites, spacecraft, lunar, and planetary exploration landers and rovers, space stations, and launch vehicles.

With the formation of IN-SPACe, it is evident that India will encourage the private space players to not only manufacture for the Indian space programme but also emerge as leading global space contractors under the vision of ‘Make in India for the World’. To reach such an echelon, these space contractors would need a vibrant, capable, and innovating domestic ‘space-grade electronics’ ecosystem around them.

It must also be noted here that the end-users of space-grade electronics from the civilian, commercial, and defence sectors. With each of these sectors intending to increase their footprint in space, a secure domestic component ecosystem would be a strategic necessity. Furthermore, almost twenty countries have begun their space agencies in the past two decades. They would not only look to India for launch rideshare, satellite operations, and downstream services, but they would also seek subcomponents manufactured in India. To that end, the designers and manufacturers of space-grade electronics can achieve scale if they can assess the demand and gain market domestically and globally. A strategy for space-grade electronics must come from IN-SPACe.

This op-ed by Chaitanya Giri was originally published in The Hindu BusinessLine on 27th June 2022.