Korean Foundry DB HiTek Makes First-Ever Bengaluru Appearance at electronica India 2026
South Korean specialty foundry DB HiTek will exhibit in India for the first time at electronica India 2026 this September, targeting the country's fast-growing fabless chip design ecosystem.
Manik Gupta
Founder and editor of DeepTech India. Manik writes about India's frontier technology ecosystem — AI, semiconductors, space, quantum, robotics and biotech — translating research and policy into clear, reliable reporting.
DB HiTek, South Korea's leading 8-inch pure-play semiconductor foundry, announced via PR Newswire on August 20, 2026 that it will exhibit at electronica India 2026 in Bengaluru this September (September 16–18) — its first-ever appearance in the Indian market. The move is a direct bet on India's fast-growing fabless chip design ecosystem, which has expanded sharply over the past two years as government incentive schemes and a wave of new design startups have pulled global foundries' attention toward India as a customer base, even as the country's own wafer-fabrication capacity is still being built out.
What DB HiTek Is Bringing
At the event, DB HiTek plans to showcase its core process technology lineup: its flagship BCD (Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS) process, used widely in power-management and analog chip designs, alongside its next-generation silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) power semiconductor offerings — both increasingly important for electric-vehicle power electronics, fast-charging systems and grid infrastructure, sectors where Indian fabless and systems companies have growing demand but limited domestic foundry capacity to serve it. DB HiTek has said the aim is to deepen engagement with local customers and evaluate the Indian market for longer-term expansion rather than a one-off appearance.
Why India, Why Now
DB HiTek's debut lands squarely inside India's Semicon 2.0 push. The Union Cabinet approved Semicon 2.0 in July 2026 with an outlay of ₹1,27,500 crore, building on the original Semicon India scheme, and Prime Minister Modi used his Independence Day address on August 15 to tell the country that India expects five to eight more semiconductor plants to come online over the next seven to eight years. Government figures cited around the same announcements show 211 chips taped out by 75 Indian institutions as of April 2026, seven of which have already been fabricated at various process nodes including advanced 12nm nodes — evidence that India's chip-design talent pool has grown to the point that foreign foundries increasingly see it as a market worth courting directly, rather than serving only through intermediaries.
That said, it's worth being precise about what's actually operating in India today. The three facilities the government most often cites as having entered "commercial production" — run by Micron, Kaynes and CG Semi — are assembly, testing and packaging (ATP) operations, not wafer fabs that manufacture silicon from raw wafers. India's first true front-end wafer fabrication line, the Tata Electronics-PSMC joint venture at Dholera, Gujarat, is targeting first silicon — its first fabricated wafers — in December 2026, per Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's confirmed timeline; Tata Electronics has also signed a strategic agreement with ASML for lithography and other advanced manufacturing equipment for that 300mm facility.
What This Means for Indian Fabless Companies
Until Dholera and similar front-end fabs come online, India's fabless chip designers — companies designing chips but not manufacturing them — remain dependent on overseas foundries like DB HiTek, TSMC, GlobalFoundries and others to actually produce silicon. DB HiTek's decision to exhibit directly at electronica India, rather than relying solely on distributors or design-service intermediaries, signals that Korean and other overseas foundries increasingly see enough volume and design sophistication in the Indian market to justify direct sales relationships — a shift that should, in principle, shorten the path and improve pricing for Indian fabless startups getting chips manufactured, even before India's own wafer fabs are running at scale.
electronica India 2026 itself sits alongside SEMICON India 2026 (September 17–19 in New Delhi) as one of two major semiconductor industry events in India this September, part of a broader calendar the government has been building to position India as both a manufacturing destination and, increasingly, a design and customer market foreign chip suppliers actively court.
Sources
Tags
More from Semiconductors
Chennai startup Aheesa's 'Vihaan' broadband chip nails first-pass silicon on an Indian processor core
MeitY says Chennai fabless startup Aheesa Digital Innovations achieved first-pass silicon success on 15 August 2026 with 'Vihaan', a DLI-backed broadband networking SoC built on RISC-V and C-DAC's indigenous 64-bit VEGA core, with production tape-out targeted for 2027.
L&T Semiconductor to Bring Chip Assembly and Test Home as India's OSAT Turns Cost-Competitive
L&T Semiconductor Technologies is shifting its OSAT (chip assembly and test) operations to India, with CEO Sandeep Kumar citing globally cost-competitive domestic players. The fabless firm is working with Tata Electronics, though it still relies on overseas fabs and covers only about 50 of 500 package types domestically.