Union Cabinet approves three semiconductor-making units worth Rs 1.26 lakh crore

In a big step forward for the domestic semiconductor industry, the Union Cabinet, under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Thursday gave the nod to the construction of three more manufacturing plants worth almost Rs 1.26 lakh crore.

Construction at the three units will commence within the next 100 days, according to an official statement.

“Within a very short time, India Semiconductor Mission has achieved four big successes. With these units, the semiconductor ecosystem will get established in India… With these units, our country will develop capabilities in chip fabrication. Advanced packaging technologies will be indigenously developed in India with today’s announcement,” said the Ministry of Electronics and IT.

The three manufacturing plants will generate direct employment to the tune of 20,000 advanced technology jobs and about 60,000 indirect jobs, it added.

Here are 10 things to know about this big story:

• Two of the semiconductor-manufacturing units will be present in Gujarat's Dholera and Sanand regions, and the third in Assam’s Morigaon region.
• Tata Electronics Pvt Ltd (TEPL) will set up one of the three units in partnership with Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC) with an investment of Rs 91,000 crore.
• This unit, located in Dholera, will have a capacity of 50,000 wafer starts per month (WSPM).
• The Dholera manufacturing plant will cater to high-performance computing chips with 28 nm technology as well as power management chips, used in high voltage-high current applications, for areas such as electric vehicles, telecom, defence, automotive, consumer electronics, display, and power electronics.
• CG Power will establish the Sanand plant, an assembly, testing, marking, and packaging (ATMP) unit for specialised chips, in partnership with Japan’s Renesas Electronics Corporation and Thailand’s Stars Microelectronics, with an investment of Rs 7,600 crore.
• The unit will have a capacity of 15 million per day and cater to semiconductor chips meant for consumer, industrial, automotive and power-related applications.
• Tata Semiconductor Assembly and Test Pvt Ltd (TSAT) will set up the Morigaon unit, which will have a capacity of 48 million per day, with an investment of Rs 27,000 crore. This unit will cater to segments such as automobiles, electric vehicles, consumer electronics, telecom and mobile phones.
• The three units will “accelerate employment creation in downstream automotive, electronics manufacturing, telecom manufacturing, industrial manufacturing, and other semiconductor consuming industries”, the ministry added.
• While PSMC is renowned for its expertise in logic and memory foundry segments, Renesas is a leading semiconductor company focussed on specialised chips, the statement added.
• The government had notified the ‘Programme for Development of Semiconductors and Display Manufacturing Ecosystem in India’ in December 2021 with a total outlay of Rs. 76,000 crore.

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