India approves plans to build $15 billion semiconductor plants

India on Thursday approved plans to build three semiconductor plants—two in Gujarat and one in Assam—worth a combined ₹1.26 trillion (about$15 billion).

As part of the proposals, Tata Electronics Pvt. Ltd will set up a semiconductor fab in partnership with Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp.  of Taiwan at Dholera in Gujarat with an investment of ₹91,000 crore (about $11 billion).

Information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said: “Today, the prime minister has taken an important decision to set up a semiconductor fab in the country. The first commercial semiconductor fab will be set up by Tata and Powerchip-Taiwan, whose plant will be in Dholera. After the Micron semiconductor plant in Sanand, a fab will now come up in Dholera.”

“A typical semiconductor fab timeline for production is 3-4 years. But (we) will try to compress it. Our country has today developed the assembly, testing, marking and packaging (ATMP) technology. Over a period of last many months, we have been able to develop ATMP technology,” Vaishnaw said.

The plant at Dholera will have a production capacity of 50,000 wafers per month, a government statement said. Each wafer can contain hundreds to thousands of individual chips, depending on the chip size and wafer diameter. This high capacity aims to meet the growing demand for semiconductors in various industries

The facility will manufacture power management chips using 28 nm (nanometer) technology, a process size that strikes a balance between performance, power consumption, and cost.

This technology is particularly well-suited for electric vehicles, telecom, defence, automotive, consumer electronics, and display applications, where efficiency and reliability are paramount.

Meanwhile, Tata Semiconductor Assembly and Test Pvt. Ltd (TSAT) will set up another semiconductor unit in Morigaon of Assam with an investment of ₹27,000 crore ($3.2 billion).

TSAT is developing indigenous advanced semiconductor packaging technologies, including flip chip and integrated system in package (ISIP) technologies for automotive, electric vehicles, consumer electronics, telecom, and mobile phones. The plant in Morigaon will produce 48 million chips per day, highlighting its high-volume manufacturing capabilities.

A third semiconductor fabrication unit will be built at Sanand in Gujarat by CG Power, in partnership with Renesas Electronics Corp. of Japan and Stars Microelectronics of Thailand at a cost of ₹7,600 crore (about $1 billion).

The CG power semiconductor unit will have a production capacity of 15 million chips per day for use in consumer, industrial, automotive and power applications.

The chip plants are expected to generate 20,000 advanced direct technology jobs and about 60,000 indirect jobs, the government said, adding that all three units will start construction within next 100 days.