Lam Research Corp has announced that 20 Indian universities will avail the Semiverse Solutions virtual innovation infrastructure to train and develop future engineers for the semiconductor industry.

The announcement was made at the SEMICON India conference at Noida. In 2023, Lam announced its aim to upskill up to 60,000 engineers over the next 10 years in India. 20 universities were shortlisted from a list of around 75 that signed up for the programme.

“Lam is committed to fostering the growth of the Indian semiconductor ecosystem. The addition of Semiverse Solutions virtual semiconductor environments to the selected 20 academic institutions will reach more than 2,600 students this academic year across the country and demonstrates significant progress towards our initiatives to help ready the next generation of semiconductor talent in India,” said Rangesh Raghavan, corporate vice-president and general manager at Lam Research India.

Following a pilot at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Lam signed a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) and IISc for the broad deployment of Semiverse Solutions to key universities in the country.

The company previously announced a contribution of $29 million in software licences towards the MoU, while ISM would support the establishment of infrastructure and operational costs. IISc will “train-the-trainers” at the selected universities, while Lam will deploy a dedicated team of employees to support the expansion across the country.

“Launched during PM Modi’s state visit to the US in 2023, the Semiverse Solutions training programme is critical to achieving our skilling objectives to develop the talent needed to support the anticipated growth of the semiconductor industry,” said Akash Tripathi, CEO, ISM.

“This programme is an excellent example of what can be achieved when government, industry, and academia work towards a common end.”

The 20 universities can use SEMulator3D®, a 3D semiconductor process and integration modelling software part of the Semiverse Solutions platform, with a goal to accelerate India’s semiconductor education and workforce development objectives.

The software is supposedly used by the world’s largest semiconductor companies, manufacturers, and foundries to model complete process flows and predict downstream ramifications of process changes that would otherwise require build-and-test cycles in the fab.

Using SEMulator3D is expected to help students learn to develop process flows and perform automated virtual experiments at significantly lower cost, and environmental impact.