The Union Cabinet has approved a semiconductor fab proposal from the Tata Group today, Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced on Thursday. Taiwan's Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC) will be Tata's technology partner in the project.
The overall investment in the project is expected to be Rs 91,000 crore. The fabrication plant will be located in the Dholera Special Investment Region, Gujarat. The manufacturing unit will have a production capacity of 50,000 wafers per month which amounts to 300 crore chips annually.
Union Minister Vaishnaw stated that the groundbreaking ceremony of Tata Electronics' semiconductor fab will take place soon and that construction will begin in the next 100 days. This is the first semiconductor manufacturing project approved by the Indian government since it announced its Rs 76,000 crore chip subsidy package in December 2021.
The fabrication unit will manufacture chips with 28nm technology and will cater to industries such as electric vehicles, telecom, defence, automotive, consumer electronics, display and power electronics, according to the Union government.
Tata Semiconductor Assembly and Test Pvt Ltd (TSAT), under the Tata Group, will also undertake a new semiconductor assembly plant in Morigaon, Assam. The project will involve an overall investment of around Rs 27,000 crore. The third semiconductor proposal approved by the Union Cabinet today is an assembly unit in Sanand, Gujarat at the cost of around Rs 7,600 crore. This is a joint project by India's CG Power, Japanese chip firm Renesas and Thailand's Stars Microelectronics. The overall investment in this project is expected to be Rs 7,600 crore.
Along with the Micron assembly plant in Sanand, Gujarat which was announced last year, India will now have three chip assembly plants in the country. Under the Semicon India programme, 50 per cent of the overall cost of approved projects—whether semiconductor manufacturing unit or assembly and testing unit—will be footed by the Union government.
Out of the Rs 76,000 crore package, close to Rs 59,000 crore has been exhausted by the four projects so far, clarified Minister Vaishnaw.
The three projects announced today will generate direct employment of 20,000 and around 60,000 indirect jobs, according to the government.
