India has set an 18-month target to produce microchips from the Sanand plant for which an MoU has been with US -based Micron Technology recently. Ashwini Vaishnaw, India’s minister of electronics and information technology, said that the construction phase of the $2.7 billion, state-supported initiative to establish a chip assembly and testing plant in Sanand will start next month.
Vaishnaw said the India Semiconductor Mission spearheaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was also doing “extensive work” to marshal support from other partners, including suppliers of chemicals, gases and manufacturing equipment, alongside groups interested in setting up silicon wafer fabrication plants.
“This is the fastest for any country to set up a new industry,” said Vaishnaw. “I’m not just saying a new company - this is a new industry for the country. Eighteen months is when we have targeted for [the first] production to come out of this factory, that is, December of ’24.” The minister's comments imposed a strict deadline on Modi's administration as it works to increase production of electric vehicles, batteries, cellphones, and other devices.
India’s tech manufacturing sector lags behind those of East Asia’s economies, particularly China, which started earlier and provided larger subsidies. Following the failure of three initial applicants, including a combination made up of the industrial conglomerate Vedanta and the Taiwanese Apple supplier Foxconn, New Delhi recently reopened bids for its $10 billion subsidy programme for chipmakers.
New Delhi revised the requirements reopened the application process to seek ideas to manufacture "mature nodes" of 40 nanometers or above - larger than the more expensive 28nm chips it had already requested. Vaishnaw said officials were in talks with more than a dozen applicants. “Out of 14-odd companies which are in discussion with us, two of them are very good, which should be able to make it.”
But Vaishnaw said India had “50,000 plus” semiconductor designers, and “practically every complex chip in the world” was already designed in India. “That ecosystem is already there. Getting the fab is the next step, which is what we are focused on and the Micron win is a very big win.”