By Ramachandran Rajeev Kumar — 2026-02-10

The GaN Code: India Cracks the Chip That France Wouldn't Share

By Ramachandran Rajeev Kumar

There is a particular flavour of humiliation that precedes genuine achievement. In the case of India's gallium nitride breakthrough, the humiliation came packaged in diplomatic language: France, while selling India 36 Rafale fighter jets, politely declined to transfer the technology underlying the aircraft's most critical electronic warfare systems. The GaN chips that give the Rafale its electronic edge were, Paris decided, too sensitive to share.

What France refused, DRDO built. India's Defence Research and Development Organisation has now indigenously developed gallium nitride monolithic microwave integrated circuits -- GaN MMICs -- that are not laboratory curiosities but deployment-ready components. With this achievement, India has entered an exclusive club whose members -- the United States, France, Russia, Germany, South Korea, and China -- can be counted on fewer fingers than a cricket team.

Why Gallium Nitride Changes Everything

To understand why a chip material generates geopolitical headlines, consider what GaN does that silicon cannot. Gallium nitride semiconductors operate at higher power densities, higher frequencies, and higher temperatures than conventional silicon-based chips. In military applications, this translates to radar systems that see further, electronic warfare suites that jam harder, and communication systems that resist interference more effectively.

The Rafale's SPECTRA electronic warfare system -- the very system France would not share -- relies on GaN-based components to detect, classify, and counter incoming threats. The technology is equally critical for active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars, which form the eyes of modern fighter aircraft and warships.

Beyond defence, GaN is the enabling material for 5G and future 6G base stations, electric vehicle power electronics, and satellite communication systems. The country that masters GaN manufacturing masters the hardware layer of the next technological era.

From Denial to Development

India's GaN programme began not with a grand vision but with a grudge -- the productive kind. When France drew the line on technology transfer, Indian scientists at the Solid State Physics Laboratory and the Defence Electronics Application Laboratory within DRDO began a systematic effort to develop the capability domestically.

The challenge was formidable. GaN chip fabrication requires precise control of crystal growth, epitaxial layer deposition, and device processing at tolerances measured in nanometres. The global supply chain for GaN substrates and fabrication equipment is tightly controlled, with the United States maintaining export restrictions on critical manufacturing tools.

Indian researchers worked around these constraints, developing indigenous processes for GaN-on-silicon carbide and GaN-on-silicon substrates. The resulting MMIC chips have been characterised, tested, and validated for integration into active defence systems -- including, with some irony, into the very Rafale aircraft whose technology denial catalysed the programme.

Not Just Lab Success

The critical distinction between India's GaN achievement and many previous "breakthroughs" in Indian defence technology is readiness. These are not proof-of-concept devices destined for years of additional development. According to DRDO, the GaN MMICs are ready for integration and deployment across multiple platforms -- fighter aircraft, missiles, drones, and naval systems.

This matters because India's history of defence technology development is populated with projects that demonstrated capability in the laboratory but took decades to transition to production. If the GaN programme maintains its current trajectory from development to deployment, it represents a genuine acceleration in India's technology absorption cycle.

The Commercial Dimension

Defence applications opened the door, but the commercial potential is what will sustain the ecosystem. In Chhattisgarh, a gallium nitride fabrication facility is taking shape in New Raipur, with ambitions to manufacture 10 billion chips annually by 2030. Commercial production is scheduled to begin by mid-2026.

Agnit Semiconductors, an Indian startup spun out of the Indian Institute of Science, is building GaN-on-silicon devices for power electronics and RF applications. The company represents the other half of India's semiconductor strategy: not just defence labs developing classified chips, but a commercial ecosystem creating products for global markets.

The convergence of defence-driven GaN development and commercial fabrication capacity could create a self-reinforcing cycle. Defence orders provide the initial demand and premium pricing that justify factory investment. Commercial applications provide the volume that drives down costs and funds continuous process improvement. This is precisely the model that built the semiconductor industries of the United States, Taiwan, and South Korea.

The Strategic Calculus

India's GaN breakthrough arrives at a moment when semiconductor supply chains have become instruments of geopolitical competition. The United States has restricted China's access to advanced chip manufacturing equipment. Taiwan's TSMC has become the most strategically significant company on Earth, not because of its products but because of who depends on them.

In this landscape, any country that can produce advanced semiconductors domestically gains strategic insurance. India's GaN capability does not replace the need for logic chips from TSMC or memory chips from Samsung. But it does ensure that India's most sensitive military systems -- radar, electronic warfare, missile guidance -- are not dependent on foreign components that could be withheld during a crisis.

This is what strategic autonomy looks like in practice: not autarky, but the elimination of single points of failure in critical capability chains.

What Comes Next

The immediate priorities are straightforward: scale production, integrate into platforms, and expand the range of GaN devices from microwave circuits to power electronics. The harder challenge is institutional -- ensuring that the momentum of a successful development programme is not dissipated by procurement bureaucracy, inter-agency rivalries, or the temptation to declare victory prematurely.

India has cracked the GaN code. What it does with that code -- whether it builds an industry or merely a handful of showcase devices -- will determine whether this breakthrough is remembered as a turning point or a footnote.

The French, presumably, are watching with professional interest. The denial that was meant to preserve a technological advantage may have created a competitor. There is a lesson there about the unintended consequences of technology hoarding, but it is one that powers rarely learn until the bill arrives.

The author is Founder & Editor-in-Chief of BarathVector.