On-chip precision passive components

Every smartphone, 5G radio, and power-management chip contains tiny resistors, capacitors, and inductors built directly into the silicon. As of 2026, no Indian design house or fab has demonstrated the ability to make them.

These are on-chip passive components — the humble but essential parts that filter signals, store charge, and match impedances inside an integrated circuit. Unlike the discrete, surface-mount capacitors soldered onto a circuit board, on-chip passives are fabricated into the die itself, during the same process that builds the transistors. That distinction is where the difficulty lies. A capacitor integrated into a chip demands precise control of dielectric thickness and area; a high-quality on-chip inductor needs specialised spiral or stacked layouts and substrate shielding to work at high frequency. Doing this reliably requires advanced CMOS process technology at 28nm and below, along with dedicated process steps such as metal-insulator-metal and trench capacitor modules.

Only a handful of ecosystems have mastered it. The United States, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Europe hold this capability; the global passive-component market itself is dominated by Asia-Pacific.

India's position is honest to state: the capability does not yet exist here. India's demonstrated foundry base is limited to 180nm CMOS at SCL Chandigarh and specialty processes at DRDO/GAETEC — neither of which supports integrating precision passives at commercial scale. For complex analog and mixed-signal chips, India relies wholly on foreign fabless designs and overseas foundry partners. For on-chip integrated passive design and process specifically, import dependence stands at 100 per cent in 2026.

The gap persists because it sits atop capabilities India is still building. On-chip passives cannot be integrated without volume production at advanced nodes, which India lacks, and without the specialised thin-film process modules that go with them. The design side is further along but still emerging: analog and mixed-signal design libraries and Process Design Kits, and the RF and analog design expertise needed to lay out passives for performance and reliability, are developing rather than mature. Passive components face steep technology and capital-intensity barriers, and India's current manufacturing push under the Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme targets discrete, surface-mount passives — Vishay for capacitors, TDK for inductors, a first domestic tantalum SMD plant — not on-chip integration.

What it would take is the harder, upstream climb: fab capacity at 28nm and below, the MIM and trench capacitor process modules to accompany it, and maturing PDKs and RF design methodology from emerging to production-grade. India's first commercial chip is expected by 2027; integrated passives lie beyond that first step.