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The Union Cabinet on Tuesday cleared four new semiconductor assembly and testing plants under its India Semiconductor Mission, which have a total financial outlay of Rs 4,594 crore. Two of these plants will come up in Odisha, and one each in Punjab and Andhra Pradesh. With these, the government is now offering financial incentives for the construction of a total of 10 chip-related factories, ranging from a fabrication plant to assembly and testing operations.
The two plants in Odisha include a Rs 2,066 crore assembly and testing (ATMP) facility being set up by SiCSem Pvt Ltd, which will produce silicon carbide-based diodes and MOSFETs, and another ATMP plant by 3D Glass Solutions Inc. worth Rs 1,943 crore. Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the second plant has investments from Intel, Lockheed Martin, and other VC and PE funds.
The first plant will have an ATMP capacity of 96 million chips per year, and the second has a capacity of producing 50 million chips a year. Both these plants will be constructed in Bhubaneswar.
Advanced System in Package Technologies (ASIP) will set up a semiconductor manufacturing unit in Andhra Pradesh, under a technology tie-up with APACT Co. Ltd, South Korea, with an annual capacity of 96 million units. The manufactured products will find applications in mobile phones, set-top boxes, automobile applications, and other electronic products.
Continental Device (CDIL) will expand its discrete semiconductor manufacturing facility at Mohali, Punjab. The proposed facility will manufacture high-power discrete semiconductor devices such as MOSFETs, IGBTs, Schottky Bypass Diodes, and transistors, both in Silicon and Silicon Carbide. The annual capacity of this brownfield expansion will be to the tune of 158.38 million units. The devices manufactured by these proposed units will have applications in automotive electronics including EVs and its charging infrastructure, renewable energy systems, power conversion applications, industrial applications and communication infrastructure.
The new locations for the chip plants mark a break from a majority of the facilities which have been approved for construction in Gujarat. Of the 10 plants now approved, four are in Gujarat.
Before these, the government has managed to attract six chip plants under its Rs 76,000 crore India Semiconductor Mission. This includes the Tata-PSMC fab, being built at a cost of roughly $11 billion, along with assembly and testing plants by US-based Micron Technology, the Tatas, Murugappa Group’s CG Power in partnership with Japan’s Renesas, Kaynes Semicon, and HCL-Foxconn. Some of these facilities are in an advanced stage of construction, with the first made-in-India chip expected to roll out later this year.
In August 2024, The Indian Express had reported that the Centre had created a fresh $15 billion blueprint for the second phase of the India Semiconductor Mission. Under the renewed scheme, the government was planning to offer capital support for raw materials and gases used in chip manufacturing, this paper had reported.
