India to get its 1st chip fab plant

Cabinet okays two Tata, one CG Power semicon units

- ASHUTOSH MISHRA

The Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved ₹1.26 trillion worth of investments in three semiconductor plants, including a Tata group proposal to build the country's first major chip fabrication facility at Dholera in Gujarat.

It also cleared a separate Tata proposal for a chip assembly plant in Morigaon, Assam, and another by CG Power in Sanand, Gujarat. The work on all three projects is expected to begin in the next 100 days.

The semiconductor fabrication unit in Dholera by Tata Electronics, in partnership with Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC), Taiwan, is expected to be set up with a total investment of ₹91,000 crore ($11 billion); it is likely to create 20,000 direct and indirect skilled jobs.

The proposed plant will manufacture high-performance computing chips with 28nm technology. Earlier, it was understood that India would be focussing on manufacturing 40 nm chips. The plant is projected to have a total capacity of 50,000 wafer starts per month.

"One wafer can have roughly 5,000 chips in it. So, practically this unit will produce around 3 billion chips in a year," said Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union electronics and IT minister, at a press conference after the Cabinet meeting.