Three semiconductor plants in India to attract Rs 1.26 lakh crore investment

The cabinet on Thursday approved setting up of three semiconductor plants in India with a total investment of Rs 1.26 lakh crore. As per the Minister of Electronics & Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw, the construction of these plants will start in the next 100 days.

"Today the Prime Minister has taken an important decision to set up a semicondutor fab in the country. The first commercial semiconductor fab will be set up by Tata and Powerchip-Taiwan whose plant will be in Dholera," the minister said

Tata's semiconductor factory

Tata group will set up its semiconductor chip fabrication unit in Gujarat in partnership with Taiwan-based Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp with an outlay of nearly Rs 50,000 crore. Last year, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran said that the conglomerate will announce its semiconductor chip fab "very soon," and "it will be a very big investment."

Along with the factory in Gujarat, the cabinet has also approved Tata Electronics' Plant which involves a financial outlay of Rs. 40,000 crore for assembling and packaging of semiconductors at Jagiroad in Assam. Thus fostering the first semiconductor plant in north-east. The Assam government will invest nearly Rs 21,000 crore.

Also Read: Major global semiconductor manufacturers drawn to India

As per The Economic Times, Tata Sons' anticipated capital infusion into new business areas and group priorities - semiconductors, defence, electric vehicles, and Air India, for instance - is set to exceed $120 billion in the coming years.

In tie-up with Japan's Renesas Electronics Corp and Thailand's Stars Microelectronics CG Power will also be setting up semiconductor unit in Gujarat.

Semi-Conductor plants

As per Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, all the plants in total will have a capacity of producing 50,000 wafers per month. One wafer has 5,000 chips so the total will be around 3 billion chips per annum.

Out of the Rs 1.26 lakh crore investment, Rs 91,000 crore will be invested in Gujarat's Dholera, Rs 27,000 crore in Assam and Rs 7,600 crore in Gujarat's Sanand.

The Minister further added that Chip fab scheme will employ 26,000 people directly, and nearly 1 lakh people will indirectly get jobs. These factories will be additional to the Rs 22,516 crore plant announced by US-based Micron in Sanand last year.

"Today, investment proposals of more than Rs 2.50 trillion have been received by the Government of India from global semiconductor majors. India is fast becoming a semiconductor nation. Just two years ago, it was not even present in the semiconductor ecosystem of the world", Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Wednesday.