India’s semiconductor story is usually told through billion-dollar fabs, government incentives, chip design, global technology partnerships and new manufacturing plants.
There is another part of the story that receives far less attention:
Who will actually work with the machines?
Who understands precision? Who can work within process limits? Who knows that measurement is not a classroom exercise? Who has learnt to set up equipment, diagnose deviations, work methodically and understand what happens when mechanical, electrical and electronic systems meet?
For the ISTC community, those questions sound strangely familiar.
A training philosophy that began in 1963
The Indo-Swiss Training Centre at CSIR-CSIO Chandigarh traces its origins to 1963 and the Indo-Swiss collaboration that established a distinctive model of technical training in India.
Generations of ISTCians grew up professionally around workshops, machines, instruments, drawings, tooling, measurement and the discipline of making things correctly.
Over time, the technologies changed.
Mechanical systems became increasingly electronic. Electronics became programmable. Automation brought sensors, PLCs, drives and control systems together. Mechatronics blurred the traditional boundaries between engineering disciplines.
But one part of the ISTC method remained remarkably consistent: engineering was something you had to do, not merely study.
And then the semiconductor industry arrived
India is now rapidly expanding its semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem, including fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging.
That creates a workforce requirement very different from the popular image of semiconductor engineering as being only about chip design.
Manufacturing facilities also require technicians, equipment engineers, automation specialists, maintenance professionals, process personnel and operators capable of working in tightly controlled production environments.
Many of the underlying habits are familiar to precision-manufacturing engineers: process discipline, equipment understanding, measurement, repeatability, troubleshooting, quality and respect for tolerances.
This does not mean that conventional precision-engineering training automatically makes someone semiconductor-ready. Semiconductor manufacturing brings its own processes, cleanroom requirements, contamination controls, equipment and specialised knowledge.
But it does mean that the distance between traditional high-quality hands-on engineering and semiconductor manufacturing may be considerably shorter than it first appears.
An ISTCian is already building in this space
There is also a direct alumni connection to this emerging ecosystem.
Sandeep Sharma, ISTC 1986 batch, is the Founder & CEO of Brain Domain.
Founded in 2005, Brain Domain today operates in the semiconductor ecosystem across education and certification, equipment and materials, and assembly, testing and consulting services.
The company describes its work as connecting talent, technology and execution across Asian semiconductor markets.
For ISTCKonnect, that makes the story particularly interesting.
An alumnus of an institution created around precision engineering more than six decades ago is now working in an industry where precision engineering has become strategically important to the country.
More about Brain Domain:
brain-domain.com
From training engineers to building talent pipelines
The larger challenge is no longer limited to individual engineers.
India needs institutions capable of creating much larger pools of manufacturing-ready semiconductor talent.
That means translating existing strengths in electronics, mechanical engineering, instrumentation, mechatronics, automation and precision manufacturing into training appropriate for semiconductor production environments.
Fidus ONE is working in this area with Brain Domain, focusing particularly on semiconductor talent enablement and the development of hands-on OSAT/ATMP training capabilities for educational institutions.
The model brings together institutional strategy, training infrastructure, equipment, curriculum, faculty development and industry linkage rather than treating semiconductor education simply as another classroom course.
More on the semiconductor talent initiative:
fidus.one/semiconductor
The bigger ISTC opportunity
The interesting question for the ISTC community is bigger than one company or one alumnus.
Across more than six decades, ISTCians have moved into machine building, special purpose machines, tooling, die and mould, electronics, instrumentation, automation, robotics, manufacturing, maintenance and industrial engineering.
Many have spent entire careers solving problems where hardware, controls, processes and people have to work together reliably.
That experience exists across generations and across countries.
As India builds new semiconductor manufacturing capacity, some of that knowledge could become valuable in unexpected ways.
Not because semiconductor manufacturing is the same as conventional manufacturing.
It is not.
But because industries change faster than engineering fundamentals do.
Perhaps this is what an alumni network is really for
An alumni network should do more than reconnect people who once studied together.
It can connect knowledge accumulated across generations with opportunities that did not exist when that knowledge was first acquired.
A young ISTCian learning mechatronics today may eventually work on equipment for an industry that barely existed in India when an ISTCian from the 1980s began his career.
The older alumnus may understand the industry.
The younger alumnus may understand the newest systems.
Another ISTCian may manufacture a fixture. Someone else may build an automation system. Another may train technicians. Another may start a company.
Put those connections together and an alumni network becomes more than a directory.
It becomes an engineering network.
And as India enters a new manufacturing era, that may be one of the most useful things ISTCKonnect can become.