Tuesday, August 12, 2014: The maiden semiconductor wafer fabrication manufacturing facility will be set up in Gujarat by 2017-end. This unit will be set up in Prantij at Sabarkantha district. This project will be handled by Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (HSMC) and this facility will ensure employment of over 25,000 people among whom 4000 will be direct employees.
Last September an approval was given by the central government that two semiconductor wafer fabrication (FAB) manufacturing facilities will be set up in the country and Gujarat will have one of them. This project will boost up the electronics system design and also the manufacturing eco-system in the country. HSMC will collaborate with ST Microelectronics and Silterra in setting up these two manufacturing units, each will have the capacity of producing 20,000 wafers/month. The first one will get launched by 2017.
HSMC president Vishal Verma said, “We got the go ahead in March this year and are in the process of finalizing the land and working on detailed project reports. We will be hiring 4000 direct employees in the initial phase.” The company is also planning for further collaboration with US device manufacturers. 11 per cent equity for the project will be provided by the central government and 1,000 acre land has also been cleared by the state government for installing the facility in the proposed electronic park in Prantij. Siemens will be partnering for the project in IT solutions and Fairwood Consultants will design the architecture of the project.
These facilities are expected to attract more than Rs 300,000 million investment while more than Rs 60,000 million will be invested by the central government. Apart from Gujarat the other unit will be set up by Jaiprakash Associates along with IBM (USA) and Tower Jazz (Israel) in Greater Noida. Presently, $8 billion semiconductors get imported by India and the numbers may increase upto $20 billion by 2020. Government beleives that setting up these semiconductor manufacturing facility will help in boosting capital and technology and will also lead to job creation. India shouldn’t depend on imports anymore, too.
