Shreya Varanasi, Pune
On Thursday, February 29, Union Electronics and Information & Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced that the cabinet had approved three semiconductor projects. He further revealed that the construction for the three projects will start within the next 100 days.
The Tata Group and Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC) are collaborating to build India’s first semiconductor fabrication (fab) in Gujarat’s Dholera region. The total investment will be Rs 1.26 lakh crore, with Rs 91,000 crore allocated to the Dholera fab. It will have a capacity of 50,000 wafers per month. According to the minister, the chip fabrication plan will employ 26,000 people directly and roughly 1 lakh indirectly.
Sharing his thoughts on the semiconductor fab, the Electronics and IT Minister said that a typical semiconductor fab production timeframe is three to four years. However, he hopes that the time will be compressed. Over the past several months, India has created assembly, testing, marking, and packaging (ATMP) technology, he said.
The Cabinet also authorized Tata Semiconductor Assembly and Test Pvt. Ltd’s chip assembly and testing factory in Assam for an investment of Rs 27,000 crore. It will be North-East’s first semiconductor unit. The minister said that 48 million chips would be produced in this unit every day.
At an estimated cost of Rs 7,600 crore, CG Power and Japan’s Renesas would also establish a semiconductor plant in Sanand, Gujarat, with a daily production capacity of 15 million chips.
These units are in addition to a chip assembly plant for Rs 22,516 crore that US-based memory chip manufacturer Micron is building.
Twenty thousand advanced technology jobs will be directly employed by these units, and roughly sixty thousand indirect jobs will be produced. According to the government, these units will hasten the development of jobs in the downstream automotive, electronics, telecom, industrial, and other semiconductor-consuming industries.
In a report by the Economic Times, N Chandrasekaran, the chairman of Tata Sons, stated that the company will unveil its semiconductor chip factory “very soon” and that it will require a significant investment.
Union Minister Anurag Thakur also stated that the International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA) would be established, with its headquarters located in India. The Cabinet also agreed on a one-time budgetary contribution of Rs. 150 crore, which will be allocated over five years, till 2027–2028.