Mahindra University to set up India's second HackerFab for semiconductor students
Students will build their own photolithography and sputtering equipment at India's second HackerFab, following IIT Bombay's. The university did not disclose the cost, or when its planned cleanroom will be ready.
Mahindra University will establish India's second HackerFab, a student-run open-source semiconductor fabrication facility, giving undergraduates hands-on exposure to chip manufacturing at a time when India is trying to build a domestic semiconductor workforce from a very low base.
The facility follows the student-led HackerFab at IIT Bombay, started in August 2025, and says is the first in India to be university-sponsored rather than student-initiated.
Students on the university's B.Tech in VLSI Design and Technology will build the core equipment themselves; a maskless photolithography system, RF sputtering chamber, spin coater and tube furnace — rather than buy it. The approach comes from the HackerFab model developed at Carnegie Mellon University in 2023, which aims to make microfabrication accessible through low-cost, student-built tools. Mahindra University also plans a cleanroom for teaching and research, the university said; no timeline was given.
The context is a shortage that money alone cannot fix. India has committed substantial public funding to fabrication plants under the India Semiconductor Mission, but fabs need engineers who have handled process equipment, and Indian undergraduate programmes have historically taught chip design rather than fabrication.
Chancellor Anand Mahindra framed it as licence to experiment, saying students should be free to fail and try again without permission.
Mahindra University launched an M.Tech in VLSI and Embedded Systems in 2023 and the B.Tech in 2024, and gives students access to Synopsys and Cadence design tools with hardware support from AMD and Silicon Labs, it said.
The university did not disclose what the HackerFab will cost or when the cleanroom will be built.
